Melly Mel
One hot afternoon I found myself reading The Sun Also Rises and inevitably falling in love with the genius of Hemingway's brevity and immediately drawn to the character of Lady Brett Ashley. She is a broken woman in many ways and even frail at times. But she is also far more dominant and coercive than she deems herself to be. She is unapologetic, sometimes insecure, charming, self-reliant and unabashedly carries a pair of balls bigger than all of the men in the room. Her power lies in her ability to perceive and deceive; to rule by allowing everyone else the foreground. I feel that I have identified with all of the beautiful and heinous things about her. Lady Brett Ashley is my literary alter-ego. For better, or for worse.