The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

The novel takes the form of a secret diary kept by Laura Palmer, a young woman in the fictional Pacific Northwest town of Twin Peaks, Washington. Spanning from Laura's twelfth birthday in July 1984 to just days before her death, the diary chronicles her descent from childhood innocence into addiction, sexual exploitation, and psychological disintegration, all shadowed by a mysterious figure named BOB who has been abusing her since early childhood.

The diary begins on July 22, 1984, when Laura receives it as a birthday gift. She describes an idyllic day: Her parents hang streamers, her best friend Donna Hayward joins for pancakes, and her father surprises her with a pony she names Troy. The entry ends with an ominous postscript: "I hope BOB doesn't come tonight" (4). That same night, Laura records a nightmare about a long-haired man with blackened thumbs who sings in her mother's voice and forces a burning heat between her legs. When her cousin Madeline ("Maddy") visits, the girls camp in a backyard fort and experiment with cigarettes. Privately, Maddy confides she has been dreaming about Laura in the woods, hinting at a shared awareness of something dark.

Over the following weeks, Laura writes poems that obliquely describe nocturnal abuse: a figure who watches from her window, tells her to lie still, and leaves her unable to cry out. She oscillates between the physical changes of puberty and crushing shame, vowing to "be good" (22) in hopes the visits will stop. When she discovers someone has read her diary in September 1984, she stops writing entirely for over a year.

Laura resumes in October 1985, having found a more secure hiding place. During the gap, her cat Jupiter was killed in a hit-and-run, a loss that devastates her. She also learns that Troy was actually a gift from Benjamin Horne, a wealthy local businessman and her father's employer, not from her father, which damages her trust and creates an uneasy obligation toward Benjamin. She and Donna venture into riskier territory, going skinny-dipping with three older Canadian men by a stream in the woods. Laura allows the men to touch and kiss her, entering a dreamlike state in which she feels "ageless" (39) and free from pain.

A pivotal encounter occurs when Laura rides Troy to an address from a dream and finds Margaret Lanterman, known locally as the Log Lady, a reclusive widow widely considered eccentric for the log she always carries. Margaret offers cryptic warnings: "Things are not what they seem"; children are sometimes prey in the woods; "Owls are sometimes big" (44-45). Laura confides that things happen in the woods at night that she is not sure are real. Margaret responds that Laura is beautiful and will be loved by many people.

On June 22, 1986, Laura describes BOB's abuse in explicit detail for the first time. He began chasing her through the woods as a small child, progressed to inserting his fingers, choked her until she stopped crying, cut her with tiny blades, and forced degrading acts upon her. Laura describes sitting alone in her bathroom with a flashlight, waiting for the bleeding to stop. Three days after her fourteenth birthday, she goes to the tree where BOB takes her, undresses, and calls out to him provocatively, trying to strip away her fear. BOB does not appear, and Laura interprets this as a victory.

She begins dating Bobby Briggs, a classmate who has admired her for years. Laura finds genuine satisfaction in being desired, but when Bobby whispers words of love after their first sexual encounter, she panics. Believing vulnerability will give BOB power over her, she forces herself to laugh cruelly at Bobby's declarations, devastating herself in the process.

Laura's world darkens when Bobby introduces her to Leo Johnson, an older man who throws parties. At Leo's, Laura tries cocaine for the first time and experiences a surge of confidence and sexual power. By early 1987, she is using regularly. BOB begins "stepping onto the page" (85), his voice interrupting her diary entries as capitalized text filled with threats and claims of ownership. Laura acknowledges she has become what BOB predicted: "A fallen girl, misused, mistrusted, lost" (88).

A dangerous cocaine deal in Low Town, a rough border district, nearly kills Laura, Bobby, and Leo. Laura is strangled by armed dealers and has guns pointed at her face but manages to steal a kilo of cocaine by hiding it under her dress. Bobby shoots a man during the escape. Later, driving alone while high, Laura hits a cat belonging to a young girl named Danielle, who emerges from the nearby house. The scene mirrors Laura's childhood loss of Jupiter. Danielle forgives Laura immediately, and the encounter breaks something open: Laura walks home longing to be a child again.

Laura constructs an elaborate double life. She tutors Johnny Horne, Benjamin's son who has an intellectual disability, and finds genuine peace reading to him. Johnny tells her "I love you, Laura" (131), his first complete sentence, which she calls the highest compliment she has ever received. She begins a sexual relationship with Jacques Renault, who works at a casino across the Canadian border. Bobby agrees to sell cocaine for Leo in exchange for Laura acting as his public girlfriend. Laura releases Troy from the stables, believing she does not deserve him, but Troy is later found on railroad tracks with a broken leg and is shot by border police. Laura is consumed with guilt.

On her sixteenth birthday, Laura discovers she is pregnant and does not know whose child it is. She has an abortion, addressing the unborn child: "Come back, child, when I am no longer a child myself" (157). She achieves nineteen days of sobriety but finds that without drugs she feels invisible. She abandons sobriety when she and her coworker Ronnette Pulaski are recruited as hostesses at One-Eyed Jack's, a brothel and casino across the Canadian border. Laura decides to start a second, decoy diary containing the sanitized version of herself the world expects.

Even as her life spirals, Laura creates counterweights. She designs Meals on Wheels, a program with Norma Jennings of the Double R Diner to deliver food to homebound elderly residents. She begins seeing Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, a psychiatrist who accepts both halves of her identity without judgment and gives her a tape recorder to supplement their sessions. Jacoby suggests Laura has "simply forgotten how to be loved" (169). She also begins a secret relationship with James Hurley, Ed Hurley's nephew, whom she describes as her "last chance for light" (179).

Laura's relationships continue to deteriorate. Her friendship with Donna has effectively ended. She is voted Homecoming Queen and feels mocked by the honor, sensing that no one in the cheering crowd can see how she is being consumed. She forces Harold Smith, an agoraphobic shut-in to whom she delivers meals, to have sex with her, then cries for hours, recognizing she has replicated BOB's predation on someone who cannot escape.

In her final undated entry, Laura writes that she knows exactly who and what BOB is and must tell everyone. She notes that pages have been torn from her diary. She fears no one will believe her "until after I have taken the seat that I fear has been saved for me in the darkness" (184). She declares she did her "very best" (184), gives the diary to Harold for safekeeping, and writes that she can no longer stay sober. An editorial note states that Laura was found dead just days later.