Page 227
Another one-page document spliced into Joelle's day, the second in five pages: the "PUTATIVE CURRICULUM VITAE OF HELEN P. STEEPLY, 36, 1.93 M., 104 KG., A.B., M.J.A." — a six-entry résumé running from a Time internship to a contributing-editor post at Moment magazine's Southwest Bureau. You know who Helen Steeply is: the enormous U.S. operative in a dress from the Arizona mountainside, whose one planted article you read at pp. 142–144. This page is the rest of the paper trail — a fake person's entire working life, fabricated for inspection. Half a minute to read; the pleasure is in the workmanship.
Terms, in order of appearance
- putative (p. 227) — real word: supposed, reputed; the same flag the p. 142 headnote flew twice.
- A.B., M.J.A. (p. 227) — A.B. is the Latin-order bachelor's degree; M.J.A. goes unexpanded (a journalism master's, from context).
- Time / Newsweek (p. 227) — real newsweeklies anchoring the fake career; Decade, Southwest Annual, and Ladies Day fill it out.
- Erythema AZ (p. 227) — the bureau's town is named with a real medical word: skin-reddening, as from sun — a dermatological joke of an Arizona address.
After you read: three things
1. The title undercuts the document (p. 227). "PUTATIVE" concedes fabrication up front, and the vital statistics do the rest: a 36-year-old woman journalist listed at 1.93 meters and 104 kilograms — six-four, two-thirty. The dossier leads with exactly the facts no disguise can fix, the ones Marathe has been mocking since p. 93.
2. Someone gave the fake woman a broken heart. The résumé's middle is a novel in miniature: five months at Newsweek ending when the Executive Editor "with whom she was in love" left and took her along; a year at Ladies Day ending "in one week" when he reconciled with his wife and H.P.S. was mugged on W. 62nd and swore off Manhattan. Legend-craft humanizes by subplot. And note the dry joke filed under medical-cosmetic features: "some research first-hand" — you've seen the electrolysis rash.
3. Helen's fictional past includes a purse-snatching — and so does her byline. The CV has H.P.S. "mugged and purse-snatched on W. 62nd"; the only published Helen Steeply article in existence (pp. 142–144) is about a purse-snatching. Whether that's an economy of invention or a private signature, the CV ends where that article began: Moment, Southwest Bureau — the perch from which the headnote said a "soft profile" of Orin J. Incandenza is coming.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.