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The Outlook for Earthlings
The Outlook for Earthlings | Joan Frank
3 posts | 1 read
The Outlook for Earthlings traces an unusual, difficult friendship across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie Taper is timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons, deliberately hidden itself lifelong. Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful, and impatient of reverence of any stripe. Scarlet is shocked by Mel's passive reserve; despite her obvious gifts, Mel is--bafflingly--self-erasing. Mel's Billy Budd-like saintliness maddens Scarlet--because finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core, a pained impasse soon becomes evident: each woman takes a secret, moral offense at the other's inmost nature--and choices. Living out these differences--against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying one of them--proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must occur. The Outlook for Earthlings examines what women want, amid conflicting layers of need. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia Woolf's declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the limits of friendship--and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it asks how we may finally measure a life--and who should do the measuring.
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DebinHawaii
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Explores the friendship of two very different women. Children of the 60s, Mel & Scarlet meet on the school bus & remain friends even as their paths diverge & each goes her own way. Mel takes the more traditional route of marriage & family while Scarlet is a journalist traveling the world. After a couple decades apart, they reunite, but that reunion is not without judgment about the decisions the other has made. Here with Tofu Egg-less Salad👇🏻

DebinHawaii ...inspired by the book for my book tour review. Link to review & recipe: http://kahakaikitchen.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-book-tour-stops-here-review-of_16... 4y
Leftcoastzen Beautiful, and you reminded me I have grapes 🍇 4y
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blurb
DebinHawaii
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It was another really long week and I am more than happy it‘s Friday. Spending my evening with dinner—a mix of Hawaiian Ahi, California Roll & Tofu Pokes with leftover jasmine rice, and hoping to start this book that I am reading for a book tour review this coming week. There will probably be ice or chocolate later. #wildfridaynight

blurb
DebinHawaii
post image

It was another really long week and I am more than happy it‘s Friday. Spending my evening with dinner—a mix of Hawaiian Ahi, California Roll & Tofu Pokes with leftover jasmine rice, and hoping to start this book that I am reading for a book tour review this coming week. There will probably be ice or chocolate later. #wildfridaynight