Before She Met Me was first published in 1982 by Jonathan Cape but I’ve only just found it. My problem with Julian Barnes is that I can’t pace myself through his books. He is so clever, so witty, so badly behaved, sometimes, that I plough through them and get to the end long before I meant to. This one was a perfect example of that.
Graham is plodding away as a college lecturer, married not particularly unhappily, with one daughter, when he meets, and falls in love with, Ann. When he eventually leaves his marriage, his embittered wife, Barbara, comes up with a rather ingenious way to scupper Grahame’s happy-ever-after. There follows the story of a man who finds that bits of his brain of which he was previously unaware until he was advised about them by his friend, Jack, have taken over his thinking, and therefore his life.
Brilliant characters, superb writing, and that’s all you need to know. I loved discovering this ‘old’ book although to me 1982 was last week.
Published by Penguin Books Australia
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