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Before Everything: A Novel
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Published:
Penguin Publishing Group 2017
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
A group of lifetime friends gather together to confront life, love, and now mortality
“Everything you want a novel about life, death, and friendship to be—smart, moving, sweeping, poetic, stinging, just beautiful. I loved these women (and their men) and this elegy to their long-reaching bonds.”
—Dani Shapiro, author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
Before Everything is a celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls. They’ve faced everything together, from youthful sprees and scrapes to mid-life turning points. Now, as Anna, the group’s trailblazer and brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they’ve always done—talk and laugh and help each other make choices and plans, this time in Anna’s rural Massachusetts home. Helen, Anna’s best friend and a celebrated painter, is about to remarry. The others face their own challenges—Caroline with her sister’s mental health crisis; Molly with a teenage daughter’s rebellion; Ming with her law practice—dilemmas with kids and work and love.
Before Everything is as funny as it is bittersweet, as the friends revel in the hilarious mistakes they’ve seen one another through, the secrets kept, and adventures shared. But now all sense of time has shifted, and the pattern of their lives together takes on new meaning. The novel offers a brilliant, emotionally charged portrait, deftly conveying the sweep of time over everyday lives, and showing how even in difficult endings, gifts can unfold. Above all it is an ode to friendship, and to how one person shapes the journeys of those around her.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
06/27/2017
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780735222588
ASIN:
B01N8WQ888
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Victoria Redel. (2017). Before Everything: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Victoria Redel. 2017. Before Everything: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Victoria Redel, Before Everything: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Victoria Redel. Before Everything: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Grouped Work ID:
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Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 16:22:02
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:42:50
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 07:45:20
Last Metadata Change:
Nov 04, 2023 11:10:22
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 07:45:23
Last Availability Change:
Feb 15, 2023 01:56:26
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 29, 2024 02:17:20

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title
Before Everything
fullDescription
A group of lifetime friends gather together to confront life, love, and now mortality
“Everything you want a novel about life, death, and friendship to be—smart, moving, sweeping, poetic, stinging, just beautiful. I loved these women (and their men) and this elegy to their long-reaching bonds.”
—Dani Shapiro, author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
Before Everything is a celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls. They’ve faced everything together, from youthful sprees and scrapes to mid-life turning points. Now, as Anna, the group’s trailblazer and brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they’ve always done—talk and laugh and help each other make choices and plans, this time in Anna’s rural Massachusetts home. Helen, Anna’s best friend and a celebrated painter, is about to remarry. The others face their own challenges—Caroline with her sister’s mental health crisis; Molly with a teenage daughter’s rebellion; Ming with her law practice—dilemmas with kids and work and love.
Before Everything is as funny as it is bittersweet, as the friends revel in the hilarious mistakes they’ve seen one another through, the secrets kept, and adventures shared. But now all sense of time has shifted, and the pattern of their lives together takes on new meaning. The novel offers a brilliant, emotionally charged portrait, deftly conveying the sweep of time over everyday lives, and showing how even in difficult endings, gifts can unfold. Above all it is an ode to friendship, and to how one person shapes the journeys of those around her.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        April 17, 2017
        In this touching story of friendship and loss, five very close friends come together to relive a lifetime of memories when a member of their close-knit tribe enters hospice care after a long battle with cancer. Each woman has a resonant relationship with Anna, the dying math teacher and musician who was always the group’s most adventurous spirit, but the story of the five women and how they share their lives with each other over decades of friendship is what gives the novel its greatest power. Weaving together a cinematic montage of moments both life-changing and mundane, Redel (Loverboy) paints Anna’s life as seen by others: her closest friends, who are always at her side; her husband, from whom she has separated; her brothers, who want her to fight the illness and refuse to accept her decision to enter hospice care; her children, grieving her impending loss even as they embark on exciting lives as young adults; and the many other characters who populate this richly realized novel. The result is an unflinching and affecting look at how one woman’s final days change the lives of those around her.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        April 15, 2017
        Friends and family gather to cajole, comfort, and/or castigate a dying woman.In a nonlinear accumulation of vignettes spanning several decades, Redel (Make Me Do Things, 2013, etc.) presents the life of Anna, whose charisma and beauty have, over the years, made her an icon in many lives. When, in middle age, Anna's rare lymphoma returns, she foregoes treatment and chooses home hospice. A swirl of friends descends, and their individual stories are woven into the fabric of her waning days. There are the Old Friends, women she's known since grade school: recovering addict Helen, now a famous, globe-trotting painter; Ming, a high-powered lawyer whose daughter has a seizure disorder; Caroline, caregiver of a perpetually needy bipolar older sister; and Molly, a lesbian, daughter of a drunken, cruel mother. The Valley friends, women who for the last 20 years have shared Anna's life in shabby-chic Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts, are feeling displaced. Her two brothers, both physicians, and her separated-but-not-necessarily-estranged husband, Reuben, are also in attendance, as well as her oldest son, Julian, who confides a secret only to Anna: she is going to be a grandmother. Valley and Old friends alike urge Anna to stay alive, and occasionally she rallies, eating a quart of ice cream and dragooning the Old Friends into an impromptu road trip. In this teeming cast of high achievers, individual personalities are hard to distinguish. Despite being constantly reminded that Anna is a queen bee, a mathlete, and a rock star whose blues band mates adore her, we learn little about her, specifically how she has managed to amass such a vast and loyal following. The prose is accomplished and the images are striking even if Redel can't resist two descriptive phrases when one will do. Only one scene in the novel lifts it, and us, out of our comfort zone: when Anna crashes a Canyon Ranch-type spa, bringing home to its patrons just how ephemeral "wellness" can really be. Though Redel has chosen a difficult topic, too often she opts for "a-w-w" moments rather than unflinching confrontations.

        COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        June 1, 2017

        Having spent years battling cancer, Anna [what is her age?] makes the decision to enter hospice care. Her lifelong "old friends" Helen, Caroline, Molly, and Ming gather to love, laugh, and support one another, as they always have done. From upcoming weddings to rebellious children, each woman faces her own challenges. As both the present and future are described, so, too, is the past that brought these friends together. They each must find a way to accept Anna's decision to stop fighting and provide her with comfort and strength. Redel's (Loverboy) story weaves the lives of five different women, and more than the tale of one woman's fight with cancer, captures the struggles of everyday life. Jumping through multiple perspectives and time periods is confusing at times, but the plot and tone portray the hardship of illness realistically. VERDICT This complicated novel of friendship is not for everyone. Fans of Jodi Picoult may find it appealing. [See Prepub Alert, 12/19/16.]--Kristen Calvert, Marion Cty. P.L. Syst., Ocala, FL

        Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity
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shortDescription
A group of lifetime friends gather together to confront life, love, and now mortality
“Everything you want a novel about life, death, and friendship to be—smart, moving, sweeping, poetic, stinging, just beautiful. I loved these women (and their men) and this elegy to their long-reaching bonds.”
—Dani Shapiro, author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
Before Everything is a celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls. They’ve faced everything together, from youthful sprees and scrapes to mid-life turning points. Now, as Anna, the group’s trailblazer and brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they’ve always done—talk and laugh and help each other make choices and plans, this time in Anna’s rural Massachusetts home. Helen, Anna’s best friend and a celebrated painter, is about to remarry....
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