Nine Perfect Strangers

Frances Welty is a middle-aged romance author. Feeling as though her best days are behind her, she signs up for a 10-day spa treatment at Tranquillum House. Though she maintains a positive facade, Frances is upset. Her latest novel has been rejected and she has recently been scammed by a man who pretended to love her. Frances seeks out Masha’s radical treatment program because she wants to change. After a lifetime of penning similar novels and loving similar men, she wants her life to be different. Frances is unsure exactly how she wants to change; all she knows is that she feels the need for something to change. This vague yearning for transformation makes her an ideal subject for Masha. Behind Frances’s bemusement and cynicism, her desperate desire to change something about herself means that she accepts Masha’s strange proscriptions right up until the moment when Masha becomes a danger. The abstinence from alcohol and chocolate, the silence, and the diet at Tranquillum House all make Frances laugh, but she embraces them nevertheless. Frances may present herself as a detached observer, but her desire to change her life means that she’s just as invested in the spa treatment as someone like Carmel.