“Coco’s Diary” is reminiscent of books like “Pippi Longstocking” and Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” in that it’s more of a series of comic misadventures than a story with an arc and central conflict. And like those books, there’s a troublemaker at the center of it all. 

And it’s always a hoot how she recounts it. It’s appropriate that the University of Minnesota Press’ latest edition of her diary is called “Through No Fault of My Own,” for that’s how Coco explains the upshots of her actions. She also applies a thick coat of grandiosity to her relatively minor punishments (“So we are martyred for nothing,” “I am the most unfortunate of women”). And she makes sure those punishments stay minor by playing her parents off against each other (“It pays knowing how to manage things”).

Read the full review of the play based on the University of Minnesota Press book Through No Fault of My Own.