The late filmmaker David Lynch’s iconic TV series Twin Peaks revolves principally around a simple question: Who killed Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)? However, as the show’s protagonist, FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), soon learns, answering this question is impossible without first answering a far broader question: Who was Laura Palmer? To that end, Cooper spends the show’s entire first season and part of its second season gradually becoming acquainted with each of Twin Peaks’ colorfully eccentric residents, learning everything he can about Laura’s life and relationships in hopes of finding her killer – which he ultimately (and controversially) does.

Yet, despite the vast amount of information that the show reveals about Laura, one perspective remains noticeably absent from the show: that of Laura herself. While Lynch would partially rectify this omission in his polarizing prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), which depicts the terrifying final week of Laura’s life, Lynch wanted to give Laura the chance to tell her entire story, not just her final week. So, in 1990, before the show’s second season premiered, Lynch asked his own 22-year-old daughter, Jennifer, to write The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, a deeply tragic but empathetic portrait of Laura’s five-year struggle with abuse, addiction, and psychological turmoil before her murder.

The Trauma of Female Adolescence

The first entry is dated July 22, 1984 – Laura’s 12th birthday, for which the diary is a present. She begins the entry by declaring to her diary that “You shall be the one I confide in the most. I promise to tell you everything that happens […] There are some things I can’t tell anyone. I promise to tell these things to you.” As the days, weeks, and months pass, she begins experiencing (and chronicling) her initial stages of puberty, including getting her first period and experiencing burgeoning feelings about boys and sex.

However, it becomes clear that Laura’s sexual and psychological maturation has been severely stunted, thanks largely to BOB, a mysterious long-haired man who regularly appears to Laura at night and sadistically abuses her emotionally and sexually. BOB’s abuse leaves Laura with immense fear, guilt, and confusion about herself and her sexuality. This spiral of negative emotions eventually leads Laura to adopt a self-destructive double life of illicit sexual activity and, later, substance abuse.

Related

‘Twin Peaks’ Fans Solved the True Crime That Inspired the Show

David Lynch’s iconic supernatural mystery series ‘Twin Peaks’ was based on a real murder of a young woman New York state from 1908.

What distinguishes the book most from the show is the lurid detail with which Laura describes her various sexual encounters. Free of the strict censors of cable television and Hollywood’s rating system, Jennifer Lynch includes several graphic descriptions of Laura’s private anatomy and how it is affected by both her puberty and her promiscuity.

Indeed, certain sequences — such as when a thirteen-year-old Laura and her best friend, Donna, go skinny-dipping with a group of older men (something Donna later recounts her own version of in Season 2) — are so detailed and explicit that they almost feel like erotica (except for the fact that they all involve an underage girl). But Laura’s diary has the opposite effect as most erotic literature, eliciting visceral repulsion at this young girl’s bodily autonomy being so egregiously violated. This empathetic horror on Laura’s behalf would later form the emotional core of the equally disturbing Fire Walk with Me.

Does Laura Know Who Killed Her?

Given that Laura’s diary was published before the premiere of the second season, it’s likely that many of the viewers who purchased it were hoping it would provide some clues about the killer’s identity, if not reveal them outright. And it does…but also doesn’t. As the diary nears its final page (i.e. right before Laura’s murder), it becomes apparent that several pages are missing, pages that the surrounding context indicates might reveal her future killer.

These glaring redactions lend this already disturbing book an even more ominous quality, creating the impression that there is a second “author” of this diary — possibly the killer themselves. Nevertheless, in an interview with the AP’s Deborah Hastings, Jennifer Lynch confidently asserted that “the careful reader will know the clues and who the killer is.”

Related

Twin Peaks: The Most Iconic Characters, Ranked

The classic 1990s mystery series was home to a plethora of iconic characters that are still remembered today. Here are the ten most memorable.

Despite its lack of a concrete answer, the book does strongly imply that the killer is connected with BOB, Laura’s perpetual tormentor, in some way. But the precise nature of who — or what — BOB is remains ambiguous. He appears to Laura almost exclusively at night while she is in bed, but it’s unclear whether his “visits” are real or just nightmares. As the diary progresses, BOB himself even begins to manifest in the diary’s very pages, as if possessing Laura as she writes, to demean and threaten her.

Laura herself seems unable to tell whether he is a person, a supernatural being, or simply a dissociative manifestation of her own damaged psyche. For readers who haven’t seen the show, BOB’s mysterious presence in the diary only deepens the mystery of Laura’s murder. But, for people who have seen the show and know the truth about Laura’s murder, he only makes the truth all the more devastating.

More Than a Dead Girl

Despite Laura’s narrative being largely characterized by unimaginable suffering and lack of agency, Jennifer Lynch frequently goes out of her way to remind us that there is far more to Laura’s story than just her abuse and murder. Rather than treat her merely as a mystery to be solved, The Secret Diary provides us with several glimpses of who Laura really was: tutoring the cognitively impaired son of her father’s boss, sewing a Christmas gift for Donna, volunteering for Meals on Wheels, or simply riding her beloved pony.

Jennifer Lynch told The Toronto Star that she “knew Laura so well, it was like automatic writing,” perhaps because she herself was barely older than Laura when she wrote the book. Her ability to identify with Laura Palmer shows through brilliantly in this book, which is just as simultaneously beautiful and tragic as her father’s legendary TV series.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer is available for purchase on Amazon through this link (the audiobook for which is narrated by Sheryl Lee herself). To find out where to watch all three seasons of Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me, see this MovieWeb article.