Curls, chemicals and the cult of royalty

Who was Richard Hudnut, and what was he doing in our bathroom? He was there to curl my mother’s hair.

Mum had her first perm at age 12. Fifty years later, when she consulted her doctor about feeling unhappy, he diagnosed a chemical imbalance in her brain. I wasn’t surprised: four decades of bondage to my father might do that to a person. But hold on … chemical imbalance? Might the perming lotion have penetrated her skull? And, if so, mightn’t it have penetrated skulls other than hers? I pictured a Stepford Wives–type scenario, not confined to one Connecticut town in the crimplene zeitgeist but spanning continents and generations.