Before, During, After

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

Natasha, a lonely congressional aide, meets Michael Faulk, a priest struggling with his faith. Love blossoms over the spring and summer of 2001. A month before their wedding, Natasha is on a trip in Jamaica and Michael is in New York when the World Trade Center is attacked. That same day, Natasha endures a private trauma of her own: she is raped by a young man on the shores of the Caribbean. She and Michael are soon reunited, but the horror of that day, and Natasha's inability to speak of it, means that there will forever be a sharp line that divides their relationship into before and after.

Reviews

An accomplished and, at times, harrowing novel full of the kind of psychological power and exactitude that first-rate fiction does so well * Guardian *
Bausch is very good at showing how rational, intelligent people allow themselves to commit the irrational act of falling in love. Superb * The Times *
One of Richard Bausch's many talents is the forthright ease with which he delivers his characters-and readers-to the gravest questions of love, faith, and ultimately God, even as he nimbly hides the answers in plain sight * New York Times *
Terrific... Bausch is a master storyteller who appreciates subtleties most of us can't see, much less write * Seattle Times *

Author Bio

Richard Bausch is the author of twelve novels and eight volumes of short stories. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Playboy, GQ, Harper's Magazine, and other publications and has been featured in numerous best-of collections, including O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South. He is a graduate of Iowa's MFA program is currently a professor of English at Chapman University in Orange, California.