Death, of course, seems a natural recourse for a season characterized, tonally speaking, by gloom, and indications of impending disaster are peppered liberally throughout: Don, in «Lazy Lazarus,» receives an existential crisis in miniature as the doors to a high - rise elevator
open onto a yawning void; a
newly obese Betty (January Jones), in «Tea Leaves,» discovers a nodule on her thyroid which may be cancerous; Roger (John Slattery), taking LSD in «Far Away Places,» authors a
note of cautionary instruction to be left on his greatly disoriented person.
With ten years of meticulous research from
newly -
opened archives, Montefiore has written four hundred - sixty pages, including forty - four of source
notes, seven of bibliography, six of acknowledgments, and thirty - two of photographs.