Life Before Man [Paperback]

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale

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.MARGARET ATWOOD is the author of more than twenty-five books, including fiction, poetry, and essays. Her most recent works include the bestselling novelsAlias GraceandThe Robber Brideand the collectionsWilderness TipsandGood Bones and Simple Murders. She lives in Toronto.

1. Of the novel's three narrators, whose voice do you find the most compelling? The most reliable? Sympathetic? Whose story is this? What might be Atwood's purpose in offering us three protagonists?

2. Suicide--considered, attempted, and committed--is the specter that haunts this novel. Chris, Caroline, Elizabeth's mother, Nate's mother, Martha, Lesje, and Elizabeth each consider, if not act on, suicidal impulses. Discuss the role of suicide in the novel. What are its repercussions and consequences?

3. Anton Chekhov has written of his own work that "I have not introduced a single villain nor an angel, although I could not refuse myself buffoons." Consider this statement in light of this novel: Who are the buffoons? Has Atwood created any angels? Villains?

4. Throughout the novel, Elizabeth is the character most likely to take control of situations and instigate change. Yet when her marriage is on the verge of collapse, Elizabeth refulĂ&