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Knopf
July 2007
On Sale: July 17, 2007
ISBN: 0375413812
EAN: 9780375413810
Hardcover
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Fiction Ancient Classics
From the author of God’s Snake (“Passionate . . . a
wonderful book”—Alice Munro), and Fear (“Remarkable, spare,
powerful”—Grace Paley), a stunning novel, her first in seven
years, that shines a light on what it means to be beautiful,
and to be possessed—by oneself, and by others. The setting is New York City in the 1970s—a time and place
of creativity, licentiousness, rebellion—and unforeseen
perils. At its center is Beatrice: twenty-five,
mesmerizingly lovely and intelligent, at once conventional
and different from everyone else, married to Ned, a talented
but volatile painter whose obsession with her has turned to
hatred. Beatrice is desired by everyone around her: by Faye, her
seductive, bawdy childhood friend; by Cyril, a lonely,
charismatic Vietnam veteran; by Colin, an aspiring musician;
by Simon, a cynical older man she meets at a bar; by Chris,
a young heroin addict. And then there is Perkins, the oddly
threatening man next door. A sliver of light from his
apartment shines in on Beatrice, a light that in her darkest
hours reminds her she is not alone. Unfolding with the powerful compression of a myth, Before
offers a daring portrait of three months in the life of a
young woman fighting for her identity—and her survival. It
is a combustible cocktail of Eros, longing, and menace, one
that captures a dizzying time in America.
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