From The Corner Of His Eye (1)

When I first started reading the book I had to go back and read the excerpt on the back because the chapters jumped back and forth between three people's lives.

I'm only on page 19, and yet a man has already killed his wife, a woman is refusing to induce labor until her tasks for the day are complete, and there is a foreshadowing of tragedy to come.

"Junior shoved Naomi so hard that she was almost lifted off her feet. Her eyes flared wide, and a half-chewed was of apricot fell from her gaping mouth. She crashed backward into the weak section of railing.

For an instant, Junior thought the railing might hold, but the pickets splintered, the handrail cracked, and Naomi pitched backward off the view deck, in a clatter of rotting wood. She was so surprised that she didn't begin to scream until she must have been a third of the way through her long fall." (10)

Naomi was Junior's wife. Before this part of the chapter, the author talked about how Junior loved his wife, she was his everything, but he killed her. It makes no sense, and the author has yet to tell me (i'm in chapter 5 now) what his reason was for shoving her to her death. So far, he has given no insight of her cheating, in fact, he makes Naomi seem like the perfect angel. I definitely can't wait to find out what his reason was.

"For a woman in her first pregnancy, this stage of labor lasts twelve hours on average. Agnes believed herself to be average in every regard, as comfortably ordinary as the gray jogging suit with drawstring waist that she wore to accommodate her baby-stretched physique; therefore, she was confident that she wouldn't proceed to second-stage labor much sooner than ten o'clock in the evening."(2)

Aggie, which is what her husband calls her, is determined to finish making her pies and give her english lesson before going to the hospital. Her husband Joey worries over her throughout the day, trying to make her go to the hospital early, but she refuses to go until she is ready.

"Bartholomew Lampion was blinded at the age of three, when surgeons reluctantly removed his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer, but although eyeless, Barty regained his sight when he was thirteen."(1)

I don't know much of anything about this kid's story yet, but wow! That's all I can really say; this book is definitely keeping me on my toes, and I can already tell it's going to have a lot of emotion. I'm excited because it's so good now, and it's not even to the best part yet...