Sarah, Plain and Tall becomes: Sarah, Narcissistic and Histrionic

[PCIntern]

Sarah, Plain and Tall is a tale set in the late 19th century. It is about a widowed midwestern farmer with two children, Anna and Caleb. The farmer advertises for a wife. When Sarah arrives she is homesick for Maine, especially for the ocean which she misses greatly. The children fear that she will not stay, and when she goes off to town alone, young Caleb, whose mother died during childbirth, is stricken with the fear that she has gone for good. But she returns with colored pencils to illustrate for them the beauty of Maine, and to explain that, though she misses her home, "the truth of it is I would miss you more." The tale gently explores themes of abandonment, loss and love.


The rewrite: Sarah, Narcissistic and Histrionic is a tale set early in the 21st Century. It is about a former beauty-queen runner-up with five children all named after non sequiturs. She lives with a man who races snowmobiles in the frozen tundra in Alaska in a town known for methamphetamine sales. Her children live in fear that one day she will run off with an older man and when she goes on an extended business trip with one Senator McCain, her eldest daughter becomes pregnant, possibly for the second time. Sarah returns, having attempted to defeat a "colored man" and says that she has much to do in her position of Governor of the State which possesses many wonders of great beauty and she explains to them that, although she would have preferred to live in the Observatory in Washington, D.C., "the truth of it is that there is much more money to be skimmed from the unsuspecting citizenry of Alaska." The tale not-so-gently explores themes of villainy, chicanery, lying, thievery, adultery, and other White Trash (for which her second grandchild was named) issues.