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 lifefirst 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.