Death-Defying Nina
Death-Defying Nina
A true story about three sisters and a mother of a midlife crisis.
In her darkly humorous memoir, Death-Defying Nina, author Lily Salter’s glamorous sister fends off death by Lou Gehrig’s disease. Lily explores her fierce love for her sister, complicated by the emotional exhaustion of Nina’s incredible will to survive.
A jet-setting flight attendant, Nina married well, living in Los Angeles with her director husband, enjoying a double-income-no-kids lifestyle. Lily, conversely, embraced the artistic life—first a stand-up comedian and TV sketch writer, and then, a freelance teacher by day and Hollywood waitress by night.
When Nina suddenly takes ill at the prime of life, Lily is not only stricken by her sister’s death sentence, but must somehow balance her hand-to-mouth existence, far-flung dysfunctional family and doomed romances with the demands of her diva-like dying sister.
Death-Defying Nina | Cast of Characters
Here are some of the key players in Death-Defying Nina. It remains to be seen if they will forgive me for the way I portrayed them in the telling of this story. However, as a writer in the throes of crisis, the flaws of character (mine included) mushroomed in proportion to my helplessness. Over the ten years that have passed since my memoir was penned my feelings have changed. And in retrospect, to me everyone who participated in Nina's battle with Lou Gehrig's disease is a hero.
