When people ask how I was able to get so intimate with the subjects of
Three Women — a book about desire reported over eight years — I talk about the different methods I used. I posed the same question, for example, dozens of times and from a variety of angles. It was a book, after all, about desire, and not about bird-watching. And a
real story about desire needed to explore the caverns of the soul. I drove across the country six times in total, posting signs and talking to everyone I met along the way, looking for the right people who’d be amenable to letting me into their lives in so close a way. I knew it had to go deep and that the subjects needed to be eminently relatable to as many people as possible.
When I met Lina, the housewife in Indiana, I knew right away she was it...