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Christian Dittus
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BEFORE YOU GO

Tommy Butler

A big, rich, life-affirming debut that explores the most perplexing questions of existence: purpose, the pain of loneliness, the desire for happiness, and the price we pay as we search for fulfillment.

Elliot Chance is just a boy, and knows nothing of this. All he knows is that he doesn't feel at home in this world, and his desire for escape becomes more urgent as he grows into adulthood, where the turbulence of life seems to offer no cure for the emptiness. Desperate and lost, he stumbles upon a support group on the edge of Manhattan. There he meets two other drifting souls?Sasha, a young woman who leaves coded messages in the copy she writes for advertising campaigns, and Bannor, whose detailed depictions of the future make Elliot think he may have actually been there. With these two unlikely allies, Elliot launches into the business of life, determined to be happy in spite of himself.

Yet the hole in the heart is not so easily filled.

Profound yet playful, Before You Go is a beautiful, imaginative journey into the ache and wonder of being human, and the quest for a meaningful life.

Tommy Butler was raised in Stamford, Connecticut, and has since called many places home, including New Hampshire, San Diego, Boston, New York City, and San Francisco. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, he has been a Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and is an alumnus of the Screenwriters Colony.
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Published 2020-06-01 by HarperCollins

Comments

“The story of a young man struggling with depression alternates with chapters about an unorthodox version of heaven in this warm debut novel Wryly humorous fun and often insightful Butler creates likable characters, and his prose is polished and inviting.”

“Butler brilliantly imagines the creation of human life, and the toll its imperfection takes on Elliot, a Gen-X man from Connecticut, in this dazzling debut. /.../ Butler's treatise on the value of life with all its moments of darkness and light leaves the reader with aching gratitude for their existence.” (starred review) Read more...

“Hats off to that brave soul daring to write what might be called speculative literary fiction, and willing to venture answers to questions beyond even those of life & death. Tommy Butler's debut novel Before You Go has a big beating heart and a mind all its own.” —Joshua Ferris, author of The Dinner Party and Then We Came to the End “Alluring. Magical. And painfully real. Will make your heart ache in all the right ways. A triumph for all of us who've suspected there's something missing deep within.” —Matthew Quick, bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook and The Reason You're Alive

"In Before You Go, Tommy Butler binds together magic and reality; wit and sincerity; big questions and small moments; deep sadness and an aching, rising joy. The result is a kaleidoscope of a novel that honors the complexity of life." -- Katie Williams, author of Tell the Machine Goodnight "Tommy Butler's?Before You Go?explores human longing in its many forms—desire, curiosity, ambition—and how it tethers us to this world. It asks not only?why?we keep going, but?how.?I read this book during a dark time and came away feeling renewed, and holding on to my own imperfect life more tightly and gratefully. Butler's writing is insightful, quick-witted, and warm. What a marvelous debut." -- Maggie Smith, poet and author of Good Bones

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