Before Everything by Victoria Redel: book review

Before Everything (2017) is set in rural Massachusetts in contemporary times.

Five girls make a permanent pact of friendship in their school years when they are eleven years old: Anna, Caroline, Helen, Ming, and Molly. They are simply called The Old Friends.

Beyond school, they continue to keep in touch through all of life’s changes.

Now, Anna is ill and dying. She enters a hospice in Massachusetts. Caroline’s sister has a mental health crisis; well-known artist Helen is about to re-marry; Milly is keeping her law practice going through love and children challenges; and Molly’s teenage daughter is rebelling. They all vow to visit Anna in the hospice, but Anna says no, don’t. But their friendship pact has to take priority, doesn’t it?

This is not a morbid story. The lives of The Old Friends flash rapidly before them as they confront the issue of their mortality, not in a linear timeline, but by their decisions, choices, and priorities. They take a lifelong look – reflectively, seriously, emotionally, comically, concentrically, passionately, and powerfully.

Before Everything is shared celebration of life and love and friendship and secrets, as well as silly childhood, teenage, and adult mistakes. It is about learning, loving, and healing.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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