My Happy Life (2002)

Millet's third novel is a nightmare limned in gold. Her nameless heroine is locked up in a windowless room in a recently abandoned sanitarium. Having eaten the soap and toothpaste, she's now starving to death, marveling at the notion that the ''difference between being and not being at all may be as small as half a peach.'' (The woman dreamily recounts a startling history of abuse and abandonment, without ever realizing that she's describing monstrosities.) What keeps the storm of revulsion at bay is Millet's lovely language. Her novel is short, a hot four chapters, but her phrasings are impeccable. Her character may have been savaged, but she feels ''sewn up, surrounded by substance like a nut in velvet or an eye in a sock.'' Or, perhaps, a warm cocoon of words.