The Conditions of Love
In 1953, ten-year-old Eunice lives in the rural backwaters of Wisconsin with her outrageously narcissistic mother, a manicureeste and movie star worshipper. Throughout this stunning debut novel, Eunice is tested by destructive forces. Her innocence is lost and regained through her ability to confront and absorb change and an innate capacity for joy. The Conditions of Love explores how destiny is wrestled from fate, how place and culture affect who we are, and how the bonds of friendship and love create a home for us in the world.
Dale Kushner
Ms. Kushner is the founder and director of The Writer’s Place, a literary center in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a recipient of a Wisconsin Arts Board Grant in the Literary Arts and has been honored by a fellowship to the Wurlitzer Foundation, The Ragdale Foundation, and the Fetzer Institute as a participant of their first writers’ conference on compassion and forgiveness. Her work has been widely published in literary journals including IMAGE, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, Witness, Fifth Wednesday and elsewhere. Her most recent poetry collection More Alive Than Lions Roaring was a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award at Utah State Press, The Prairie Schooner Book Competition, the Agha Shahid Ali Prize at University of Utah Press and The Tupelo Prize. Her story “When You Open the Door, Where Are You?” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is on the core faculty of The Assisi Institute, a Jungian think-tank in Brattleboro, Vermont and will assume the position of Poetry Editor for The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling September 2013.