Before She Met Me

Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011

Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann, and is more than pleased with his new life. Until, that is, the day he discovers Ann's celluloid past as a mediocre film actress. Soon Graham is pouncing on old clues, examining her books for inscriptions from past lovers, frequenting cinemas and poring over the bad movies she appeared in. It's not that he blames Anne for having a past before they met, but history has always mattered to him...

©1982 Julian Barnes (P)2020 Penguin Audio

A predictable story, outstanding writing

Julian Barnes is among the most compelling authors with respect to prose, structure, clarity, depiction of details, depth of characters. As I have seen in several of his novels, the story does not measure up to the writing. Two of his novels I loved (Talking it Over, Love etc.), a few others were enjoyable, but here the events can be predicted by the end of the first quarter of the novel. "Don't let the past eat up the present" is the final message, but we knew it from almost the start.