Living in the slums of Rio & eking out a living as a typist Macabea loves movies Coca-Cola & her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe but she is ugly & unloved Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo SM who tries to direct Macabea's fate but comes to realize that for all her outward misery she is inwardly free Slyly subverting ideas of poverty identity love & the art of writing itself Clarice Lispector's audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of innocence in a bad world