Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Once upon a time, there lived a girl whose story was not her own. . .
So the story goes: Neglected and abused by her family, eclipsed by her elder and more beautiful sister, a young girl longs for happily-ever-after, for something, someone to rescue her. She is soon swept away into the next chapter of her life: marriage a promising world mirroring Old Testament stories and fairy tale traditions. But loving just anyone and living the age-old ever-after narrative, as it turns out, fails to bring true happiness after all. Dragged down by a destructive marriage, her sister s continued manipulations, and the growing weight of roles and expectations created by others at her back, she must choose between continuing in her familiar, complacent life, or boldly breaking free and finally making her own way.
Named for an Appalachian murder ballad in which a girl is drowned by her sister, Dreadful Wind & Rain s creative verse narrative unseats expectations for what it means to live a fairy tale life, revealing the powerful force that comes from stripping away the traditional roles and beginning to write a story all your own.
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Synopsis
Everything Ever, Everything After opens with the image of a girl behind the glass of an ordinary living room window, caught between the family struggle happening behind her and the world she can't yet break through to. The poems in the collection move through the roots and consequences of the family trouble, through generations, estrangements, and a marriage and its end. The poems occasionally draw on the fairy tale tradition and the Old Testament stories of Leah and Rachel to ultimately bring the speaker and the reader finally to the possibility of leaving the story.