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Canadian Fiction, Phases of Life - Fiction, Love & Relationships - Fiction
Life before Man by Margaret Atwood β€” book cover

Life before Man

by Margaret Atwood, Margaret Eleanor Atwood
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Overview

Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices--after the rules have changed.  Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man.  She has just lost her latest lover to suicide.  Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men.  Hanging over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover...and the dizzying threat of three lives careening inevitably toward the same climax.

Synopsis

Life Before Man vividly portrays three people in thrall to the tragicomedy some call love. Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, they are forced to make drastic choices – after the rules have changed and the boundaries have become faded. There is Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, who seeks solutions in the wrong men; Nate, wry and gentle husband of Elizabeth, racked by an inability to decide; and Lesje, quiet and inexperienced, who prefers dinosaurs to most men. Hanging over all of them is the ghost of Elizabeth’s dead lover…and the threat of three lives careering inevitably toward potential catastrophe.

About the Author, Margaret Atwood

Accomplished in equal measure as a poet, novelist, and essayist, Margaret Atwood is as much a dazzling storyteller as she is a committed feminist. Her novels and stories educate as much as they entertain, but without ever veering into dogmatism.

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Book Details

Published
April 1, 1998
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pages
361
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780385491105

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