The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

1990 | Jennifer Lynch

I usually don’t read books based on films or television series, but after re-watching Twin Peaks, including Fire Walk With Me and The Return, I just couldn’t resist diving deeper into the wonderful world centered around the strange town of Twin Peaks. The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer was published between the first and second seasons of the series, before the murderer had been revealed, and the tone is miles away from that of the series, full of darkness, despair, and drugs, and with barely any of the quirkiness and humor. At the time, I imagine it must’ve been quite a shock for readers, but the tone is similar to the film Fire Walk With Me, which explored the final days of Laura Palmer.

Laura Palmer is a deeply tragic character, suffering from abuse, drug addiction, and supernatural visions from the darkness lurking beneath Twin Peak’s surface, the black lodge. Through her diary, the sexual abuse of adolescent Laura and her escape through marijuana, cocaine, and promiscuous sex is described in enough detail to make most readers squirm. Read after season one of the series, the grittiness and tragedy that are only vaguely hinted at in the series would provide the reader with an entirely different perspective going into season two. However, having seen Fire Walk With Me before reading The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, there is not much new. I learned about Laura’s cat, her pony, and her relationships with some of the other characters in the show, like the log lady and Josie Packard, but the main mystery is explored in as much detail, and with a horrifying conclusion, in Fire Walk With Me.

Lynch’s writing style is a good fit for the book. It mirrors Laura’s condition, being opaque about topics she’d rather avoid and clear about the few mundane parts of her life. At times, there are sentences that truly evoke the dread of BOB and the black lodge in the forests outside of town. After having heard her cousin Maddy tell a ghost story, Laura avoids retelling it completely, arguing: “I don’t want to feed my dreams” (p. 10). There are also a few other lines from the book that I thoroughly enjoyed and felt fit into the world of Twin Peaks perfectly. “Death decides it is hungry” (p. 97) is another such line, capturing Laura’s obsessions with death and her feeling that it’s closing in on her.

One thing I felt was a missed opportunity was further exploration into the black lodge. We could’ve learned more about the strange beings existing there, their relationship with the owls, and the contact Laura seems to have with them through her dreams. Of course, there are a few parts of the book that could be interpreted as occurring in or near the black lodge. One such example is the orgy in the woods. I first interpreted this to be a clear hint to build further upon the lodge and the Twin Peaks mystery, but some of Laura’s diary entries seem to indicate a more mundane origin. It seems to hint at Leo Johnsson being aware of the lodge, however, this aspect of his character is never explored further and is completely absent from the show. As a Twin Peaks fan, I would enjoy a few moments of clarity, adding to my understanding of the greater canon, but the book is generally vague when it comes to such moments.

An aspect that expanded Laura’s character and added some depth to the Twin Peaks universe was Laura’s relationship with Johnny Horne. It stands as a stark contrast to most other relationships she’s involved in, as sex, power, and abuse are absent from it. It’s a shame that Johnny was mostly written out of the show, as it makes his quite important role in this book seem a bit inconsequential. And even though Fire Walk With Me contains most of the important parts of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, and then some, Johnny Horne is notably absent. In my opinion, the film fills the same place in the Twin Peaks universe as this book, and makes the book quite unnecessary.

If you’re looking for more Twin Peaks, or if you just can’t get enough of Laura Palmer, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch is a good read. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not a big fan of the show, and even then, it isn’t necessary reading at all, as you could just watch Fire Walk With Me instead. There are a few nice moments, like the scenes with Johnny Horne and an expanded backstory for how Bobby Briggs turned to criminality, but in the end, I felt the book to be quite superfluous. 

Apparently, there are five more canon books. I might check some of them out if the Twin Peaks bug comes back to bite me (come fall perhaps), but at the moment, I feel happy enough having watched the show. Twin Peaks is television, after all. A classic that transmitted mystery, the supernatural, and a cozy surface hiding terrible darkness through the screen to millions of viewers. I’d prefer to sit down to rewatch the earlier seasons with a cup of coffee, black as midnight on a moonless night, and a piece of cherry pie. Then, if that just isn’t enough, it might be time to look into the expanded universe that The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer began.

I read the 2011 edition published by Gallery Books. ISBN: 978-1-4516-6207-8