VLVL2 (10) Your average suburban mom, 194

[Paul Nightingale]

(194.13-15) "... a Spanish split-level up a pleasant cul-de-sac on the
high-rent side of Ventura Boulevard, with pepper trees and jacarandas in the
yard and a vintage T-Bird in the carport."

Am I right to assume that Ventura Boulevard covers a wide social spectrum,
ie both rich and poor, commercial and residential? If so, the passage ("the
high-rent side") reminds us that rich and poor don't inhabit different
worlds. How much social mobility has Ditzah enjoyed?

(194.22-23) "Pretending to be film editors," she told Prairie, "but we were
really anarchist bombers."

Cf the subsequent description (197) of their performance, followed by the
"movie camera as weapon" passage. Ditzah's irony is self-deprecating, of
course.

(194.23-27) "This evening she looked like your average suburban mom, though
what did Prairie know, maybe it was another disguise. Ditzah was drinking
sangria and wearing eyeglasses with fashion frames and a muumuu with parrots
all over it."

Prairie has been inserted into the lifestyle of a respectable middle-aged
and middle-class citizen, the first to appear in the novel thus far; her
speculations are based on access to privileged knowledge about Ditzah's
past.

Cf the introduction to Frenesi, anything but affluent, "in an apartment in
the older, downtown section of a pale humid Sun Belt city" (68).