Life sentences: A novel

Life sentences: A novel by Hailey, Elizabeth Forsythe. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780440049241.

Three women --- Lindsay, Meg, and Cissie --- were college roommates, but they havent seen one another for twenty years. It is Lindsay Howard, a successful New York magazine editor, who draws them together once again. At forty-two she realizes that her life has been impelled by a single-minded devotion to others, but now she wants to explore every options left to her. To do this she is forced to keep secrets from her family and nearby friends, and to push away the man who loves her. It is to her college friends that she turns for support in this life-changing decision. As they renew their loyalties to one another, they gain insights into their lives --- with their husbands and children, as well as with their own parents --- and they recognize their struggle for independence in the context of their families. And it is with a newfound and joyous confidence that they emerge from their time together, ready to embrace their own life sentences by making lifetime commitments to love another person --- whether it be a partner in marriage, a lover, a child, a parent, or a friend. In A WOMAN OF INDEPENDENT MEANS, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey wrote about a strong woman in an unliberated time asserting her independence, while LIFE SENTENCES is about a woman in a liberated time acknowledging her interdependence. In LIFE SENTENCES the results are at once poignant and devastating, comforting and provocative, but above all unforgettable.