The Life Before Her Eyes

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.