Women cheat, women suffer. They used to be attractive—so they smooth away their age. I shout mine aloud because I was never attractive, because I shall always have my baby hair. It’s taken me two and a half hours to write that, two and a half pages of my exercise book. I shall keep on, I shall not lose heart. The next morning, eight o’clock in the morning of June 24, 1962. I’ve changed my place, I’m writing in the woods because of the heat. Began my day by picking a bunch of wild sweet peas and picking up a feather. And I complain about being in the world, in a world of trills and thistles. The chestnut trees are slender, their trunks are languid. The light, my light, has been tamed by the leaves. It’s new and it’s the newness of my day.

—Violette Leduc, The Bastard (1964)

Image: Richard Baker: Violette Leduc La Bâtarde (2011)
See more of Baker’s paperback (and record album) paintings here.