CARSON McCULLERS (42): The stroke-stooped, alcoholic, erstwhile-wunderkind Southern writer is thrilled to host a luncheon at her home in honor of the author Isak Dinesen. Her other guests are Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. ISAK “TANIA” DINESEN (74): The imperious and legendary, turban-clad baroness and Danish author of Out of Africa is enjoying her first trip to the United States and being lionized — as she expects to be — everywhere she goes. MARILYN MONROE (32): Bombshell icon married to Arthur Miller, although the marriage is failing. Her alcohol and drug addiction — and fragile emotional state — will contribute to her death just three years later, a month before Dinesen’s. ARTHUR MILLER (44): In addition to his marriage to Monroe, his writing is in a slump, and he recently, barely survived the ringer that is the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although a renowned playwright, he is still tinkering with his screenplay, The Misfits, which will be Monroe’s last film. On this day, however, he is the man who chauffeurs Marilyn and the baroness to Nyack. IDA “SISTER” REEDER (55): McCullers’s Black, Southern maid, cook, attendant and friend. She worked at a psychiatric hospital before moving in to nurse the ailing author a few years earlier. Since McCullers’s mother’s death in 1955, Sister has been the frail writer’s primary caretaker and companion. She calls Carson her “foster child.”