Exit: A Novel by Liliana Bad

Description

EXIT, my latest novel is a landmark in my life. It took me three years to achieve it. For three years, I lived as secluded as in a convent. Thinking and living with the characters, in a parallel world...My mind was asking them questions, they seemed to talk in their own voices, and my mind was listening to their stories, imagining we were on a huge theatrical set; they were the narrators, I was the director, and the audience was the world.

When EXIT was finished — I understood the secret of the SECRET. Exit is a symbol... we enter and cry, and that is life; we cry and leave and that is death. We are not born equal... yet, there comes a moment in our lives when each one of us will have to face the EXIT. At that moment we become equal... and there will be one question for all of us, without exception: "What have you done with your life?" I do not want to have to answer, "What a fearful thing is to reach the end of life and think I have noting to account for except a thin veil of confused images signifying nothing but wasted opportunities." (Exit, page 263).

EXIT is the story of a woman's metamorphosis; finding her true self through her incurable illness; after having been the perfect mother and wife, Ondine breaks the chains of her absolute solitude and becomes the real woman; the woman she was meant to be. Ondine, has dreamt of becoming a writer and has never had a chance to fulfill her dream... it is the illness that will spectacularly open for her the door to her dream...being Ondine; the painful process of becoming a writer... becoming aware of the cruel realities of life. Awakening.

Exit is also a powerful social novel - about passion, compassion, and mostly social generosity and sharing... so rare nowadays... in a society obsessed with the idea of an instant success... fearing to admit that failure is an intrinsic part of our tribulations in the space called Life.

What is a writer? A writer is a foreign country. Why does one write? For whom does one write? You write, that's all. And people read you. You write for the people who read you.

And I have also understood that as a writer, I am not allowed to hold back anything from my readers; should this be painful, embarrassing, joyful or sad... I have to deliver to my readers the whole truth about my soul and mind. I am not ashamed to state that my life has been like a roller coaster: a succession of failures followed by success... and then back to failure...and back to success; the power lying in the balance, we are our injuries as we are our successes.