Before We Sleep

by Jeffrey Lent

Katey Snow, seventeen, slips the pickup into neutral and rolls silently out of the driveway of her Vermont home, her parents, Oliver and Ruth, still asleep. She isn't so much running away as on a journey of discovery. She carries with her a packet of letters addressed to her mother from an old army buddy of her father's. She has only recently been told that Oliver, who she adores more than anyone, isn't her biological father. She hopes the letter's sender will have answers to her many questions.

Before We Sleep moves gracefully between Katey's perspective on the road and her mother, Ruth's. Through Ruth's recollections, we learn of her courtship with Oliver, their marriage on the eve of war, and his return as a changed man. Oliver had always been a bit dreamy, but became more remote, finding solace most of all in repairing fiddles. There were adjustments, accommodations, sacrifices--but the family went on to find its own rhythms, satisfactions, and happiness. Now Katey's journey may rearrange the Snows' story.

Set in a lovingly realized Vermont setting, tracking the changes that come with the turning of the seasons--and decades--and signaling the dawning of a new freedom as Katey moves out into a world in flux, Before We Sleep is a novel about family, about family secrets, and about the love that holds families together. It is also about the Greatest Generation as it moves into the very different era of the 1960s, and about the trauma of war that so profoundly weighed on both generations. It is Jeffrey Lent's most accomplished novel.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Novels, Contemporary, Adult Fiction

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2017

About the author

Jeffrey Lent was born in Vermont and grew up there and in western New York State, on dairy farms powered mainly by draft horses. He studied Literature and Psychology at Franconia College in New Hampshire and SUNY Purchase. He lived for many years in North Carolina, an enriching and formative experience. Lent currently resides with his wife and two daughters in central Vermont.

His novel In the Fall was a national bestseller reprinted four times in its first month of publication, was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book for 2000, and earned Jeffrey placement in both Barnes & Noble’s and Borders’ new writer programs; his follow-up, Lost Nation, was a summer reading pick of The Washington Post and USA Today. Both novels were BookSense picks, Book of the Month main selections, and have been widely translated. His most recent novel is Before We Sleep.

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katey Snow finds out that her dad is not her biological father so she heads out on the road to find the man who actually impregnated her mother. The book goes back and forth between Katey and her mother, Ruth's perspective and weaves the two stories together. Another book involving World War II, just can't get away from them, not that that's a bad thing just more an observation. The writing had potential, the author's writing was kind of dreamy and flowed well but the problem was he had to write about every detail of what Katey was doing and it really didn't add anything to the book, it just bored me. Also the plot has been done before and I think I'm just tired of people finding out someone else fucked their mothers like who cares the person who raised you is still your dad does it really matter whose sperm it is. That's not really the authors fault but I do think Katey really didn't seem to grow much from her road trip like yeah she meets her "real" father but what does she get out of it, her and her mother still have problems. And there's another thing (trigger warning???) I don't understand the whole rape scene and what happened after, it felt pointless and just seemed to happen to make something happen it didn't add anything at all to the plot line or Katey's growth . I don't think the author's a bad writer, I just don't think the book was well planned out or particularly interesting. It felt cliched and some of it irritated me because why is rape always the answer for introducing growth or change with female characters like come on man.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to Goodreads.com I received this book free and clear. AND for an HONEST review.
Well, the story goes like this --- Blah, Blah, Blah. I fell asleep several times reading the extremely, descriptively wordy story. The author could have eliminated about 100 pages because of the wordy nature of the soap opera journey.
I really got bored trying to absorb my brain into the novel. Perhaps you should read some of the other reviews to find out what this novel is all about.
Believe me, I did try to like this book. But it didn't work out.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeffrey Lent writes a thoughtful and nuanced novel that weaves the experiences of two generations of one family into a canvas with the gorgeous landscape of New England and rural Virginia embedded in the portraits of these people, their struggles with what life throws at them, and their thoughtful, careful dealings with each other. Katey Snow is adored by her father, but has a prickly relationship with her mother, so the revelation one day by her father that she is not his biological child sets in motion a yearning within her to confront the man who is her father, the man behind a handful of Christmas cards kept in a shoebox in her mother's closet. She's a deep thinking and considerate 17 year old, but not very worldly. Her journey of discovery takes us through the countryside and thinking of the late 1960s, a journey very much of its time with country folk, people experimenting with "alternative" lifestyles, and a generation of older men and women who lived through the before and after of the Second World War. Katey's parents' story is that story, a before and after that caused change that could never be undone. This is a very moving novel that gives no alternative but to read it it slowly, savor the descriptions, and think about how how each of us finds our way in the world in our own way and in our own time.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review for this novel was published in the March 15, 2017, edition of Library Journal:

In Lent's (In the Fall) elegaic sixth novel, 17-year-old Katey Snow sneaks out of her Vermont home while her parents sleep, hitting the road in search of answers to a family secret. Armed with three years of savings and a pack of old letters, Katey embarks on a journey of self-discovery that takes her from the coast of Maine to a small town in Virginia; it is the summer of 1966, and the winds of change are in the air. Chronicling Katey's parents' fledgling marriage with piercing acuity, Lent devotes half the narrative to that earlier generation. For Ruth and Oliver Snow, World War II changed everything: he returns home from service unable to communicate or take pleasure in anything, save for a family tradition of repairing fiddles. But a fateful visit from an old army buddy triggers something in Oliver and sets in motion an indiscretion that forms the reason for Katey's quest. As the past catches up with the present, Ruth and Katey, from their own vantage points, strive to find understanding in each other. VERDICT Lent's luxurious and deliberate writing is in no rush to deliver its ample rewards. For admirers of Emma Cline's The Girls, here is a less sensational but worthy companion.

Copyright ©2017 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

[Mark Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter unfolds slowly, the details of setting, and the mystery of human relationships, and why people become who they become - these are all a part of Lent's special gift as an author. I find I like to read a chapter and then let it steep in my consciousness for a while. Some might wish for the action to unfold more quickly, but I find great pleasure in the deliberate and artful way Lent explores the human predicament, and, rather than tying everything up in a neat little bow, allows us to wonder what might happen next. A coming of age story unlike any I've ever read.

[Paula Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple story, well told.

[SueLucie · Rating 3 out of 5]

With thanks to Bloomsbury for the opportunity to read this.

Seventeen-year-old Katey embarks on a road trip, ostensibly to find her biological father, but just as importantly to see what life is like outside small-town Vermont. It is the middle of the 1960s and conscription to the US military adventure in Vietnam is beginning to be felt in Katey’s generation. She has grown up with a father traumatised by his experience in Germany at the end of WWII, though she knows little detail of what happened to him - that comes from her mother’s narrative and her biological father who served alongside him. So the horrors of war and its aftermath are uppermost in this novel.

Not such an unusual story but I was prepared to become immersed in the family’s experience. This is exactly where I had a major problem with it, though, and none of its characters or their relationships really engaged me. As a travelogue with a strong emphasis on landscape and regional food, I thought it worked well, but I’m not sure that was the author’s intention.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Jeffrey Lent, but this book really didn't cut it with me. For the most part, it's a glorified coming-of-age story, and I'm not fond of teenage angst. Katey Snow adores her father, but he has grown increasingly distant, and Katey and her mother don't get along. When she finds affectionate letters sent by her father's war buddy to her mother, she takes off in search of the man she believes may be her biological father. She encounters good people and bad, hippies and farmers, small town folk and smaller town folk, and encounters everything from kindness to rape. Her story alternates with that of her mother Ruth, who married her high school sweetheart, a man who was never the same after World War II experiences. I thought the novel really dragged, and the characters were dull compared to those in Lost Nation or In the Fall.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New England family saga about the coming-of-age moment when something shifts and children see their parents in a different light, empathetically as people with flaws or people who made sacrifices. Jeffrey Lent writes about northern New Englanders unromantically, and I forgot I read the ARC until months later but I remember reading the quiet disappointment and sadness between the lines.

[Janell · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best writers working!

[Eileen Charbonneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

World War II’s effects are felt for two generations in Lent’s powerful family story, set both post war and 1967. Vermonter Katey Snow takes the family pick up truck on a runaway journey of self discovery before she’s set to graduate high school in June of 1967. She’s been in contention with her mother Ruth for some time. A revelation by her father at the height of one of their arguments precipitates her search for an army buddy, Brian Potter, who may have sired her.
Meanwhile the courtship and marriage between Ruth and Oliver Snow is examined through Ruth’s, and, briefly, Oliver’s point of view. Oliver returns home to his parents and young wife, a man changed by war trauma. He can no longer deal with people in his father’s store and becomes reclusive, until he finds an outlet of music: playing and repairing fiddles of old time and French Canadian masters. His family expands their boundaries of normal to accommodate— he goes from night stocking shelves at his father’s store to being a primary parent of Katey. His wife Ruth becomes the breadwinning teacher, adapting to her changing circumstances.
On her 1967 journey, Katey discovers both the seashore and the counter-culture before finding Brian Potter in Virginia. Each takes the measure of the other and Katey learns that her family’s story is both more complex and rich than she’s imagined.
The taciturn people of Jeffrey Lent’s novel reveal themselves in the details of their lives. They learn that it is not for them to choose either great loves, gifts or sorrows. Beautifully written and evocative of place, Before We Sleep rends the heart and nourishes the soul.

[Kim Kamis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Family saga. Not much to hold my interest. Focuses on a mother/daughter/father relationship. No bad guys. No action. No resolution.

[~mad · Rating 3 out of 5]

good book - untill it just dropped off at the end!

Ive read Jeffery Lend beforel is why I picked this new one up.

Good story BUT so very many words used to describe the seasons, the snow, the village - the .....I got a little frustrated.

Enter at your own risk.

[K. Wills · Rating 3 out of 5]

**SPOILER ALERT**

This is, by far, *not* Lent's finest novel. It's barely readable, in fact. I wanted to give it 2 1/2 stars, not 3; I decided to give him 3 solely b/c it's a lengthy novel and no doubt he went to some pains to figure out the various flashbacks. Still. Those flashbacks are part of the problem, but not the biggest part.
First, the author needs to learn how to use commas. He uses them rarely, and usually when they aren't needed. The novel suffers from sentences that are fragmented and long, and don't make sense, and then the reader has to backtrack and read them two or three times to make sense of them. I loved his writing in earlier books. But not here.
Second, the plot is ludicrously unrealistic. No 17 year old girl is as wise and discerning as Katy, and almost none of them - and certainly not one as sheltered as Katy - would do what she does in this novel. And none of them would undergo a rape and then, a mere 24 hours later, shake it off like it was nothing. Are you kidding me?
Furthermore, her mother Ruth's character completely changes, without explanation, 2/3 of the way into the book. There is no way she would do what she does with Brian. Nor would Brian talk the way he does, going on and on with descriptions of people and places. No man talks that way, and esp. not one who has been damaged by war. And Katy's father, who is, we're told, also incredibly damaged by the war, somehow doesn't seem all that damaged once Brian comes to visit. Was the visit like some sort of magic? Did it give Oliver some kind of catharsis? We are left to figure it out on our own.
I loved Lent's "In the Fall" and "Lost Nation" but ever since those two - and of the two, "Lost Nation" is by far the most well crafted - Lent has lost his way. At one point I looked down and saw I was only 67% of the way through the book, and I became very depressed b/c I was anxious to finish the book and be done with my misery. Lent has, in the two previous works mentioned, had a poetical way of expressing himself. I throughly enjoyed that expression. But this book seemed rote. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, but worse, I found the plot improbable and forced.
This simply is not a very good book. Mr. Lent seems as lost as his characters.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author demands that a reader take a contemplative journey with his characters and makes the setting its own character. Set in the late 1960's, it covers the changing relationship between a teen girl and her parents who live in a relatively isolated community in Vt. I lived there in the same period and can identify with the need Katey felt to experience the larger world, but she is motivated by the purpose of uncovering her parentage by a one time sexual encounter by her mother. Her naivete is challenged by an overnight visit to a commune which enboldens her resolve to believe her mother was raped. Flashbacks lend the backstory of the parental marriage, which lacks warmth but is not abusive. The relationship of Ruth to her family is pivotal to understanding the changing world that will see Katey leaving but returning to the Vt home. Be prepared for lots of description of the changing seasons in Vt as well as the setting in Virginia which is eyeopening to Katey both for its tobacco fields and the "hands" that farm it.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This book attempted to touch on a lot - personal dramas, family, relationships and interactions set in a historical moment that's in flux. Belief systems that conflict as the way of the world is changing in the late 1960s. I very much enjoyed the perspective and conflict of this novel. A teenage daughter in 1967 finding out some staggering details of her parents' past - the author choosing to share from both the mother's and daughter's perspectives, allowing glimpses into the past of each to share their stories with the reader. Often, the anecdotes and recollections contributed to our understanding; several times, they felt extraneous or slightly too long-winded. There is definitely a high level of detail and precision in the author's words, slowly revealing the importance of what they're describing. But sometimes it felt too slow, and I think the story could've benefited from being 50 fewer pages.

[Sarah Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeffrey Lent can tell complete stories like few authors I've read. The plot, the character development, the descriptions of the places and times are woven together in a way that makes them all equally important and enriches the reader's experience immensely. I equally want to savor his way with words and descriptions, think more about each character, and find out how the story concludes.

The three main characters in this book are equally complex, nuanced, three dimensional people who are sharing a life together as father, mother, and daughter until a fact is spoken that had been hidden for many years. Lent skillfully tells the back stories of the characters in such a way to arouse the reader's sympathy for each.

[Deb Ristow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program. Before We Sleep is the story of two women- Seventeen year old Katey who discovers that her father is not in fact her biological father and Ruth, Katey's mother. Told from both points of view, the reader gets glimpses into Ruth's story- married to Oliver whose personality has changed after the war and the circumstances leading up to Kateys conception. The reader also is thrust into Katey's life and her desire to find out more about her biological father and the people she meets on her journey. Lent tells a great story pulling the reader in with very believable characters and in great storytelling fashion. Overall a great read!

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the book is interesting. Most of it is long monotonous and boring. Two writing styles interspersed throughout the book. 17-year-old Katie leaves home to find her biological father. She lived a sheltered life and the trip is an eye-opener for her. It's the 60's and she meets some quirky characters along the way. That would have made an interesting short novel. Too bad you have to wade through chapters that will bore you to tears to get there. Some parts seem unrelated but even some important parts are written in such a drab style it's barely readable. The ending is dragged out, mostly the boring wordy writing style.

[Blaine Morrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lent tells a powerful tale, primarily from the perspectives of a mother and daughter, both of whom love Oliver, a former WWII soldier. The mother, Ruth, has adjusted to Oliver's silence and brooding, supporting him and raising Katey with him. Katey struggles with Ruth, but adores her father. When she learns that she may have a different father, she sets out on a discovery journey. The things Katey discovers and experiences on her journey are set as counterpoints to Ruth's memories, and it is Ruth to whom the reader is most drawn. Almost every character in this fine novel is brimming with wisdom, and the dialog grips the reader as if a guru were sharing insights to the seeker of truth.

[BookBrowse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parts of the book might have benefited from a stiff edit to bring out the real nuggets of the story. But for those who do enjoy a gentle, slow amble through a character's psyche, Before We Sleep is perfect for cuddling up to under a blanket, speaking the best sentences out loud, savoring them a few sips at a time. The close reading of each beautifully crafted line, laden with soul and compassion, is its own reward.
-Zoë Fairtlough

Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Margaret Galbraith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still really don't have a clue what this book was about or what the point the author was trying to reach but I just didn't enjoy it! Sorry maybe I missed something but it just seemed far too drawn out and jumped around too much for my liking. It was an audio book which I generally enjoy, depending on the narrator, she was ok but just found this one a bit of a bore. However there are some good reviews here too, so perhaps worth a look.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we have the road trip as journey of discovery, each stop for young Katey Snow an encounter that leads to another life lesson. The description is detailed and true, but the plotting felt a bit calculated. The hard aftermath of war, even in small town Vermont, is the central theme. The voices of the distressed wife/mother and daughter alternate, except for one chapter when plot details needed to be revealed through the veteran's POV.

[Naomi]

I am a big fan of Jeffrey Lent and this is one of his best. I love the deep quiet that inhabits his stories. In his slow, quiet way, Lent is unafraid of a long meander through rural landscapes or the human psyche, layering his scenes like painter. He portrays the conflicts of his characters with such compassion. I loved going along on their inner and outer pilgrimages. A poignant reflection of different generations.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lent is a very descriptive writer, and I read the whole thing but I can’t say it was a great effort. It meanders, and it just sort of runs down the clock, but that’s it.

Getting a little tired of “coming of age” which seemed to dominate my selections in the last half of the year. It’s not even something I seek out but by chance it was a theme in last few books. Avoidance is the watchword going forward.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful language with long long descriptive paragraphs but storyline not appealing enough to capture me. The story goes back and forth between the parents and the teenager. The dad went off to WWII and came back damaged; the mom is dealing with her husband + life; the teenager just found out her bio dad is not her father and is off in search of him.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to read more of Jeffrey Lents books. He writes in a way that is reminiscent of Kent Haruf. This story went back and forth in its points of view and if it weren't for the great writing it might not have held my interest. It's a great character study but a little light on plot. I still liked it though.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this intergenerational story of parents and children. I was surprised at how much the author understood mother/daughter relationships. As a child of the 70s it rang very true for me and I suspect it would have for my mother.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a bit slow at times but it's a story of a family with secrets that threaten to tear them apart told from the perspective of the mother Ruth in a chapter, followed by a chapter told by her daughter Katey. A good read!

[Wanda Meade · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book went around the world and ended up nowhere. I was left scratching my head and thinking, "What??" The encounters that Katey has are brushed over and there is no understanding about the rape that takes place. None of the characters seem real.