A Welcome from the Author

[LauraMoriarty]

Anyone who reads the local section of the newspaper is all too familiar with the kind of accident that opens The Rest of Her Life: someone inadvertently hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk ... someone backs out of a driveway without seeing the child playing there ... someone turns a corner without noticing the cyclist moving up on the right.

For me, the most terrifying thing about these kinds of accidents is the idea that you can do so much harm without meaning to, and that you can do it without even knowing you’ve done it.

These also happen to be the two things that scare me about parenting. We all have our blind spots. In The Rest of Her Life, I wanted to look at a daughter dealing with the guilt of not seeing a pedestrian until it was too late. But I also wanted to tell the story of a mother trying hard to identify her emotional blind spots -– in this case, before it’s too late. I’m under the impression that the inability to see oneself clearly is something many people have direct and indirect experience with, and I look forward to hearing other perspectives on this idea, and other ideas in the book, from B and N readers. So welcome to the discussion!