From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   Because there isn't much activity here, except ugly activity, I'm gonna post   
   something that isn't so important....   
      
   I finished reading this book.  The plot structure was a buildup to a   
   revelation.  There were two women, the title character, Virginia, and a cousin   
   of hers that she was close to as a child, and about 4 older women who were   
   their female relatives, 2 of    
   which were elderly and confused.  This structure was very obscured by the   
   whole thing being written in stream of consciousness and shifting viewpoints   
   between all of these characters.  Unfortunately, the author chose to name two   
   secondary characters that    
   were involved in the 2 confused viewpoint characters Roy and Ray, which made   
   parts of the narrative awful to sort out.   
      
   Virginia visits her home town while she's pregnant, develops toxemia, and   
   collapses in her second aunt's house, who is the mother of her childhood   
   friend.    She is out of it, and is advised not to be moved much, so all of   
   the female characters come    
   there to tend to her, and eventually there is the revelation that one of the   
   grandfathers, Raymond, developed a mental illness during the last decade of   
   his life.   
      
   He was fascinated by King Tut and the Pyramids, and saw himself as a Pharaoh,   
   and had himself buried in a concrete vault with his television and books about   
   Egypt.  When he was alone with the girls, he terrorized them, told them he'd   
   kill them unless    
   they worshiped him.  When his burial arrangements were complete, he became   
   abusive toward his wife, who eventually killed him and made it look like a   
   suicide.  Each of these women has kept their aspect of the situation secret   
   from the world and each    
   other, and in the climactic scene, they tell one another their individual   
   experiences, and how Raymond screwed up their lives.   
      
   So that was the plot.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)