The Rest of Her Life
Laura Moriarity, 2007
Hyperion
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401309435
Summary
In The Rest of Her Life, Laura Moriarty delivers a luminous, compassionate, and provocative look at how mothers and daughters with the best intentions can be blind to the harm they do to one another.
Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy—the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.
Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, "What would I do?" (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 24, 1970
• Where—Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.S.W. and M.A., University of Kansas
• Currently—Lives in Lawrence, Kansas
Laura Moriarty received her master’s degree from the University of Kansas, and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. The Center of Everything is Moriarty's first novel. Her second, The Rest of her Life, was published in 2007, While I'm Falling in 2009, and The Chaperone in 2012. (From the publisher.)
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• There are other Laura Moriartys I shouldn't be confused with: Laura Moriarty the poet, and Laura Moriarty the crime writer. If it helps, I'm Laura Eugenia Moriarty, though I've never used my middle name professionally.
• I got my first job when I was sixteen, cooking burgers at McDonald's. I've been a vegetarian since I was ten, so it was a little hard on me. I'm also technically inept and kind of dreamy, so I frustrated the guy who worked the toaster to the point where he threatened to strangle me on a daily basis. I kept that job for two years. I gave Evelyn a job at McDonald's too, and I made her similarly unsuccessful.
• Another job I was really bad at was tending bar. I was an exchange student at the University of Malta about ten years ago. I thought I wanted to go to medical school, so I signed up to take all these organic chemistry and physiology classes. In Malta. It was terrible. The Maltese students were into chemistry. I had a lab partner named Ester Carbone. There was a rumor my instructor had his house built in the shape of a benzene molecule. I couldn't keep up. I dropped out in February, and I needed money. Malta has pretty strict employment laws, and the only job I could get was an illegal one, working at a bar. I don't know anything about mixed drinks, and I don't speak Maltese. I think I was supposed to stand behind the bar be American and female and smile, but I ended up squinting at people a lot, so eventually, I was in the back, doing dishes. That was the year I started writing.
• The Center of Everything has a few autobiographical moments, but not many. I grew up with three sisters in Montana. When you say you're from Montana, people get this wistful look in their eyes. I think they've seen too many Brad Pitt movies. I saw A River Runs Through It, which is set in my hometown, Bozeman. That movie drove me nuts: I don't think anyone is even wearing coat in the whole movie. They can't keep filming up there in August and tricking everyone. Of course, now I live in Maine.
• I have tender hands, and the worst thing in the world, for me, is going to an event that requires a lot of hand shaking. Some people shake nicely, but some people have a death grip, and it's really painful. The thing is, you can't tell who's going to be a death gripper and who isn't. Big, strapping men have shaken my hand gently, but an elderly woman I met last month almost brought me to my knees. She was smiling the whole time. I went to a hand shaking event a month ago, and I went along with the shaking, because I didn't want to look rude or standoffish or freaky about germs. But hand shaking just kills me. I'm not sure what to do about it. I went back to Phillips Exeter a month ago, and a very polite student reintroduced himself to me and extended his hand to shake. I actually tried to high five him. He looked at me like I was a crazy person. My sister told me I should take a cue from Bob Dole and carry a pen in my right hand all the time, so I might try that.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
It's difficult to pick just one, of course. But I will say that while I was writing The Center of Everything, I read Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, and it made a strong impression on me. I only knew about Sagan from watching the Nova Channel when I was a kid, but I happened upon an essay he'd written before he died. I was so impressed I went to the library and checked out some of his books. In The Demon Haunted World, Sagan stresses the importance of skepticism and rational reasoning when considering the mysteries of the universe.
It's easy for us today to see the insanity of the witchcraft trials, but Sagan gives a sympathetic account of how frightening the world must have seemed in those times, and how quickly our ability to reason can be dismissed in the face of fear and superstition. Today, Sagan points out, we have crop circles, alien abductions, and religious fundamentalism; the book has a great chapter called "The Baloney Detection Kit," an important tool for any open-minded skeptic. What I like most about Sagan is that he seems skeptical without coming across as cynical. He looks at the vastness of the universe and the intricacy of the natural world with so much wonder and awe, and he's able to translate it to a reader who isn't a scientist, such as myself. I also noticed how he refrains from making fun or putting down his opponents; there's such a generosity of spirit in his writing. I tried to put a bit of Sagan in Evelyn, the narrator of The Center of Everything. (Author interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Like Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, Laura Moriarty's first novel, The Center of Everything, owed its success to the immense likability of a young female protagonist. Mixing just the right combination of solemnity and cheer, Moriarty turned a potentially sappy coming-of-age tale into a full-on charmer with the voice of her 10-year-old narrator, Evelyn Bucknow of Kerrville, Kan., who courageously traversed a hard-luck childhood without any false moves. In her second novel, the author has achieved an even more impressive goal, inspiring compassion for a character unblessed with Evelyn's immediate appeal.... Moriarty's novel shows that it is not literature's job to be uplifting, or even to be beautiful. It is literature's job to say yes, to every corner of every life: yes to disaffected characters like Leigh as well as to winsome ones like Evelyn Bucknow; yes to grief as much as to solace; yes to wrongdoers as well as to the wronged; and yes most of all to "our weak attempts," as Leigh acknowledges, "to feel each other's burdens."
Donna Rifkind - Washington Post
Moriarty's follow-up to book-group favorite The Center of Everything again explores a tense, fragile mother-daughter relationship, this time finding sharper edges where personal history and parenting meet. Now a junior high school English teacher married to a college professor, Leigh has spent much of her adult life trying to distance herself from her dysfunctional childhood. Raising their two children in a small, safe Kansas town not far from where Leigh and her troubled sister, Pam, were raised by their single mother, Leigh finds her good fortune still somewhat empty. Daughter Kara, 18 and a high school senior, is distant; sensitive younger son Justin is unpopular; Leigh can't seem to reach either-Kara in particular sees Leigh (rightly) as self-absorbed. When Kara accidentally hits and kills another high school girl with the family's car, Leigh is forced to confront her troubled relationship with her daughter, her resentment toward her husband (who understands Kara better) and her long-buried angst about her own neglectful mother. The intriguing supporting characters are limited by not-very-likable Leigh's point of view, but Moriarty effectively conveys Leigh's longing for escape and wariness of reckoning.
Publishers Weekly
(Audio version.) It's the dream of every woman who had a troubled relationship with her mother that her relationship with her own daughter will be different, and Leigh's mother, who left Leigh to fend for herself when she was 16 years old, was certainly no role model. Unfortunately, though raised with love, care, and the financial security of an upper-middle class lifestyle, 18-year-old Kara has never been close to her mom. So when Kara, driving inattentively, accidentally kills another high school girl, past and present begin to merge in Leigh's distraught mind. While the first half of the novel is excellent, the second half is studded with what seem like unavoidable cliches. Moriarty (The Center of Everything) can't seem to get out of her own way; it's almost as if she's repeating information straight out of self-help books. Then there's the larger problem of transferring a novel this slowly paced to audio. Julia Gibson's narration is spirited, but Moriarty's sense of language is not well crafted enough to be fully absorbing. Recommended for larger collections.
Rochelle Ratner - Library Journal
Another novel of troubled mothers and daughters from Moriarty (The Center of Everything, 2003), whose straightforward, unadorned prose speaks on some level to every woman. Leigh and her older sister Pam came up the hard way, always the new kids at school in one nameless town after another because their divorced mother kept changing jobs. Left to fend for herself when Mom moved alone to California, Leigh struggled to make it through college. In addition to a degree in education, she also picked up Shakespearean grad student Gary. As the book opens, the couple lives in a small Kansas town; Gary teaches at the local university, Leigh at the middle school. Their daughter Kara, just about to graduate from high school and leave for college, is a golden girl who doesn't find it easy to relate to her mother. Younger child Justin, engaging but friendless, longs for acceptance from his peers. The middle-class family's seemingly golden life hits a bump in the road when Kara, driving home from school, accidentally strikes a fellow student in a pedestrian crossing and kills her. The small town that had seemed like a protective blanket suddenly becomes a city of eyes, watching and prying — or at least that's how the family perceives it. As Kara struggles with her conscience, Leigh finds herself unable to connect with her own daughter. She remembers her hardscrabble childhood and the mother she swore never to emulate. In this compelling story of female relationships — mothers, sisters, daughters and best friends — Moriarty's characters grab readers the minute they enter the story, and recollections of their vivid personalities will linger long after the last page. Well-written, convincing and impossible to put down.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Leigh is certainly a flawed human being. But what are her strengths — as a mother and as a human being? What are her weaknesses? If her weaknesses are a product of her difficult childhood, why is her sister so different?
2. In the course of the novel, the relationship between Leigh and Kara changes. What do you think of as the major turning point in their relationship? What do you think was at the heart of the conflict?
3. How important is the setting to this story? Would the same situation have played out differently in a larger town, a suburb, or a city? What do you think would have been the same?
4. At the beginning of the novel, Leigh believes she likes living in a small town like Danby because she likes the sense of community it offers. Is she really a part of this community? How does Leigh’s relationship to the town change over the summer?
5. When Leigh accuses Eva of being a gossip, Eva defends herself by saying she just cares about what’s happening in the lives of people in her community. Do you buy this? Leigh spends a lot of time worrying about what people are saying about her family, but is gossip ever a positive force in the story? Do you like Eva? Why or why not?
6. After hearing Eva deny being a gossip, Leigh is stunned: “People didn’t see themselves, she considered. It was almost eerie when you saw it face to face.” Who else in the novel might not see herself or himself clearly? Does anyone? Do you think of this selective “vision” as a conscious choice or a true inability?
7. Is Gary a better parent than Leigh? In what ways does his relationship with Justin mirror Leigh’s relationship with Kara? What is it about each child that brings out such different responses from both Gary and Leigh?
8. The first time the bereaved mother confronts Kara, it is Leigh — not Gary — who steps in to protect her. Leigh believes she recognizes something in Diane Kletchka, something we can assume Gary does not. What do you think it is about Diane that feels familiar to Leigh?
9. In this novel, we see Leigh in several different kinds of relationships: she's a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a friend. How do all these different roles compete with each other for Leigh's attention/ loyalty? Does she give too much attention to any one role? Not enough to another? In what ways do these different kinds of relationships influence one another?
(Questions from the publisher.)
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