From youthful scrapes to mid-life turning points, the Old Friends have faced everything together.
So as Anna, their brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they've always done: they laugh and eat, and help each other make choices and plans, and talk through dilemmas with children and work and love.
But now the sense of time has shifted, and the pattern of their lives takes on a new, urgent meaning. As their shared experiences are recounted and re-lived, this funny, bittersweet ode to friendship shows how even in difficult endings, gifts can unfold.
About the Author
Victoria Redel was born in New York, and attended Dartmouth College and Columbia University. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines including
Granta, Harvard Review, Elle and
The New York Times, and she currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Her debut novel, Loverboy, was adapted for a feature film directed by Kevin Bacon.
Before Everything is her first novel to be published in the UK.
Industry Reviews
Redel's prose is artful and insightful ... this is a hugely moving celebration of love, life and friendship. -- Eithne Farry * S Magazine *
Terminal illness doesn't always bring out the best in people, nor does it preclude other sorrows. To find an honest and sympathetic reflection of both truths is refreshing. * Daily Mail *
Bittersweet * Grazia *
An extraordinary, touching and tender story about female friendship. * Prima Magazine *
A riveting celebration of life and death. * Elle Magazine *
Brings to mind Virginia Woolf's The Waves. * BBC Culture *
Poetic and insightful ... I have been blown away. * Laura Jane Williams, author of Becoming *
An unflinching and affecting look at how one woman's final days change the lives of those around her. * Publishers Weekly *
Before Everything turns on the grand themes, love and death. Redel's elegant narration unfolds not in linear time but in the time of memory, moving among the friends to reveal their shifting connections, needs, and circumstances. At once tough and tender, funny and sad, this beautifully written novel articulates the dynamic realities of those wondrous friendships that last a lifetime. -- Siri Hustvedt
Terminal illness doesn't always bring out the best in people, nor does it preclude other sorrows. To find an honest and sympathetic reflection of both truths is refreshing. * Daily Mail *
A riveting celebration of life and death. * Elle Magazine *
Before Everything is a riveting, timely story that explores the unsettlingly beautiful, emotionally charged landscape that is revealed when old friends embrace what they have never before admitted: the limits of mortality and the boundlessness of friendship. -- Ruth Ozeki
Gorgeous, a heartbreaker, a non-stop dazzler, a major achievement. -- Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours
An extraordinary, touching and tender story about female friendship. * Prima Magazine *
Poetic and insightful ... I have been blown away. -- Laura Jane Williams, author of Becoming
Bittersweet * Grazia *
Brings to mind Virginia Woolf's The Waves. * BBC Culture *
Victoria Redel bears witness to a remarkable group of women, effortlessly weaving back and forth through time, each thread revealing the cracks and secrets of their complex lives, while also drawing them closer. . . . Redel proves that female friendship is the quiet, steady engine that truly runs the world. -- Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
I admire Victoria Redel's work for so many reasons-for its fearlessness, its complexity, its beauty-and Before Everything is one of the most brilliant, radiant, and heartbreaking books I've read in years. Redel's characters-fierce and funny, loyal and compassionate-feel as real and beloved as the people we hold dearest in our own lives. An extraordinary novel by one of the best writers we have. -- Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
A touching story of friendship and loss . . . richly realized. The result is an unflinching and affecting look at how one woman's final days change the lives of those around her. * Publishers Weekly *
Redel has crafted a lyrical ode to female friendship, proving that bonds can somehow be made of iron and elastic, sometimes strong and sometimes frail. She fleshes out the five main characters admirably for such a short book, linking each of their most vulnerable memories to their shared crisis. Fans of Anne Tyler and Jennifer Close will adore this warmhearted and clear-eyed novel. * Booklist *
