It's Called the Sugar Plum

Book excerpt: THE STORY: Zuckerman, a college student, has ran over and killed a young man riding a skate board. As the play opens he is in his room pasting newspaper clippings into a scrapbook, humming contentedly, as he listens to a report of the accident on the radio. There is a knock at the door. Joanna, the fiancee of the dead man, enters in tears of accusation. After her initial tirade it's not long before they end up in each other's arms and in bed, quarreling over the amount of space devoted to each of them in the newspaper's report of the accident. Zuckerman's outrage during the quarrel is the only emotion he feels, whereas shedding tears is no problem for Joanna. But what amuses and disturbs them most is the chilling speed with which their instinctive self-concern overcomes the grief of the one and the guilt of the other. What develops is an intense new liaison between the two of them which quickly erases all memories of the departed.