The World Before Her - by Deborah Weisgall (Paperback)

About the Book

A stunning novel about two women and two marriages--George Eliot at the end of her life, and another by a remarkably similar woman a century later--that confronts the eternal dilemma of how to find love and sustain it, without losing one's self and personal ambition in the process.

Book Synopsis

Marian Evans--who writes under the pen name George Eliot--has come to Venice on her honeymoon. It is 1880 and she is newly married to John Cross, twenty years her junior. She has come to this city of canals and bridges to start again, to forget the death of her longtime partner, George Henry Lewes--with whom she shared twenty five years of happiness and art. In this new marriage, in this intensely romantic place, can she give herself the happy ending that she provided for Middlemarch's Dorothea Brooke?

A century later, sculptor Caroline Spingold takes us to Venice again. Scarred by her father's abandonment just after she and her parents spent a summer in the city, Caroline vowed never to return. But now her powerful, wealthy older husband has brought her back against her will, to celebrate their tenth anniversary.

Told in alternating chapters subtly linked by themes of art, love, and the challenges of marriage, The World Before Her tells of two women, their surprising similarities, and the reckoning Venice will force them to make with their desire, their memories, and their very selves.

From the Back Cover

"Abrief and beautiful story of how we get over love, and how we have changed in our struggles to name and contain it by marriage. The World Before Her is not the lightest book you'll pick up this summer, but it might be one of the smartest, and most vibrant." -- Salon.comIt is 1880when Marian Evans-- pen name George Eliot--has come toVenice on her honeymoon with John Cross, who is twenty years her junior. She wants so much to start again, to forget the death of her longtime partner, George Henry Lewes-- with whom she shared twenty-five years of happiness and art, to give herself the happy ending she provided for Middlemarch's Dorothea Brooke. A century later, sculptor Caroline Spingold takes us to Venice again. Scarred by a summer she and her parents had spent in this city, she had vowed never to return. But now her powerful, wealthy older husband has brought her back, against her will, to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. A novel of art, love, and the challenges of marriage, The World Before Her tells of two women, their surprising similarities, and the reckoningthis city of canals and bridges will force them to make with their desire, their memories, their very selves."It all makes one yearn for Venice; for art; and for another novel just like this one." -- Buffalo News Deborah Weisgall has written extensively about the arts painting, music, performance for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, Connoisseur, and The New Yorker. She is the author of the novel, Still Point, and the family memoir, A Joyful Noise. Weisgall lives with her husband and daughter in Lincoln, Massachusetts."