Before Everything

I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn't connect with it. There were a lot of characters, and the reader has to work hard keeping track. In fairness, that may be just me being a lazy reader. My main gripe is that I didn't like any of the 'Old Friends', and thought their behaviour and attitudes were mean and petty.

Anna has a recurrence of the cancer that she has been battling with for many years and this time it is terminal. She has a very close-knit group of friends from her schooldays who have always been there for each other. Geographically they are not now so close but they rally round whenever possible and give support, remember the past and make demands on Anna for their attention. She also has a group of friends who she has met more recently because they live in her neighbourhood. They have been providing daily support for Anna for a number of years, as and when it is needed. Reuben is Anna’s husband. Although they are actually living apart from each other at the moment they are still very close friends. And finally there are her children, adults now and living their own busy lives. All these people are involved in a very real way with Anna in her current (and final) crisis and this book explores the whole range of emotions that each experiences as well as the dynamics between all the people concerned.

I desperately wanted to like this book and actually, to some extent I did. Thankfully I am not in a position to have experienced this situation, either from the point of view of the friends, relatives and carers or from the point of view of Anna herself. However, I strongly suspect that many of the emotions that were described, and which were sometimes on display for all to see, were very typical of the things that people feel in this situation. The tale is told by many narrators, which has the advantage of giving an insight into the innermost thoughts of many of the main characters. Their feelings, while not necessarily entirely altruistic or admirable at times are, I suspect, realistic. As an example of this, one very small thing that resonated with me was the way Anna’s “old” friends, now spread far and wide, resented the intrusion of her “new” friends who all live within spitting distance and were there for her on a daily basis. The old friends thought they had the right to monopolise Anna when they visited, and that the newer friends did not have such a rightful claim to her time. Despite the fact that they are not considering either Anna’s best interests or Anna’s needs, this whole situation seems entirely plausible. Also, as I got to know the characters better there were many moments that were both tender and poignant. There were some heart-breaking scenes as everybody struggled to cope with the emotion of it all and overall there was a level of perception and sensitivity on the part of the author which is laudable.

However, I just couldn’t quite fall in love with the book despite my best efforts.
To be honest I found it a bit boring and long-winded in places, especially at the beginning when I hadn’t got to know the characters as individuals. There was also a problem with the characters themselves as I didn’t seem to be on their wavelength and didn’t really like many of them. To some extent this may have been because they are not necessarily behaving as they normally would because of the situation in which they find themselves, but I strongly suspect that they could have been developed in a way which made me more sympathetic and empathic, while still retaining the same character traits.

Sadly this book did not live up to either my expectations or my hopes although it did have some very interesting and insightful observations, many of which will remain with me for a very long time.