The Outlook for Earthlings traces an unusual, difficult friendship
across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie
Taper is timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in
unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human
foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons,
deliberately hidden itself. Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful,
and impatient of reverence of any stripe. Scarlet is shocked by Mel's
passive reserve; despite her obvious gifts, Mel
is--bafflingly--self-erasing. Mel's saintliness maddens Scarlet--because
finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship
suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core,
a pained impasse soon becomes evident: each woman takes a secret, moral
offense at the other's inmost nature--and choices. Living out these
differences--against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying
one of them--proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must
occur. The Outlook for Earthlings examines what women want, amid
conflicting layers of need. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia
Woolf's declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the
limits of friendship--and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it
asks how we may finally measure a life--and who should do the measuring.
