The Life Before Her Eyes - by Laura Kasischke (Paperback)

About the Book

Diana stands before the mirror preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment, the future she was just imagining--a doting wife and mother at the age of 40--is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make.

Book Synopsis

Diana stands before the mirror preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment the future she was just imagining--a doting wife and mother at the age of forty--is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make. In prose infused with the dramatically feminine sensuality of spring, we experience seventeen-year-old Diana's uncertain steps into womanhood--her awkward, heated forays into sex; her fresh, fragile construction of an identity. Together with the sights and sounds of renewal, we experience the tasks of Diana's adulthood: protecting her beloved daughter and holding onto her successful husband.
An acclaimed writer and poet, Laura Kasischke has crafted a consciousness that encompasses the truth of a teenager's world and the profound transformation of that world at midlife. Resonant and deeply stirring, The Life Before Her Eyes finds piercing beauty in the midst of a nightmare from long ago that echoes like a dirge beneath each new spring.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES
The intensity of The Life Before Her Eyes is both enhanced and leavened
by Kasischke's masterful and stunning use of imagery; she is as much poet
as novelist, and the melding of the two has produced a work of dark and
lyrical beauty."-Jo Ann Beard, author of The Boys of My Youth

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