Margaret-Love Denman

Margaret-Love Denman directs the creative writing program at the University of New Hampshire. She is the author of A Scrambling After Circumstance and Novel Ideas: Contemporary Novelists Look a...

Daily, Before Your Eyes

Margaret-Love Denman

Awaiting execution for the murder of her pimp, Theresa Marie Magnarelli, or Traci as she now calls herself, forms a bizarre relationship with Tory Gardiner, the new widow of her court- appointed defense attorney. Daily, Before Your Eyes follows the unlikely journey of these two women into the dark world of Death Row, exposing Junior Leaguer Tory Gardiner to the lies of her own world as well as the realities of a larger world she has never known.

An unlikely bond develops between these women—one, a sheltered member ofthe middle class, the other streetwise and turning tricks by the time she was sixteen. They find a commonality in daughters they both loved and lost and in their dependence on men who disappointed them. While appealing Traci’s conviction, they both seek redemption: Tory for her husband’s negligence and Traci for her life.

Reviews

"Full of unusual turns and surprises, Daily, Before Your Eyes questions traditional notions of being good and being bad. The book won’t let you look away from what’s unpleasant or forget that what is personal is also political." —Sheri Reynolds, author of The Rapture of Canaan

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"Margaret-Love Denman creates intricate worlds that are historically rich, varied in generational perspective, and portrayed with enviable linguistic grace. She depicts her characters’ lives through lively, authentic dialogue as well as through fine passages of metaphorically nuanced description. Daily, Before Your Eyes takes her writing to a new level of psychological complexity, political consequence, and dramatic intensity. Here the potential for civic awareness in all of us is evoked in the growing consciousness of a middle-aged Mississippi woman. From such people revolutions begin." —Valerie Miner, author of Abundant Light and The Low Road