Before
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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.
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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, Beforeoffers 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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