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
“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 came away from this book 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, author of Good Bones
“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, New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook
“Butler brilliantly imagines the creation of human life, and the toll its imperfection takes . . . . Beautiful, heart-wrenching prose . . . 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.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This book blew me away… Butler has this incredible way of writing that pulls you in to even the most mundane-seeming experience, and makes you realize it’s actually quite profound… an emotional and fascinating speculation on the human experience.” — Reader Haven
"Inventive and profound." — LargeheartedBoy.com
"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." — Kirkus
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 came away from this book 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.
"Inventive and profound."
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."
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.”
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.
This book blew me away… Butler has this incredible way of writing that pulls you in to even the most mundane-seeming experience, and makes you realize it’s actually quite profound… an emotional and fascinating speculation on the human experience.
2020-06-03
The story of a young man struggling with depression alternates with chapters about an unorthodox version of heaven in this warm debut novel.
The main plotline begins with the 1980s childhood of Elliot Chance. His parents are somewhat distant, his older brother, Dean, a bit of a bully, but Elliot’s imagination provides him with a troupe of friendly monsters. There’s an air of whimsy about the monsters and about Elliot’s discovery of a mysterious book, but that’s brought up short when his attempt to physically enter into the book’s fantasy world leads to an injury—and a doctor’s diagnosis that the boy is suicidal. Elliot’s wryly humorous first-person narration takes us through his high school and college years quickly and focuses on his 20s, when he’s working as an accountant in Manhattan during the dot-com boom. Elliot meets two significant friends in his support group for potential suicides: Bannor, a dapper middle-aged man who insists he has visited the future; and Sasha, a woman about Elliot’s age who writes advertising copy in which she hides subversive messages. Each of them will have an impact on Elliot’s struggles. The story of his life is interlaced with chapters set in a sort of heaven, a beautiful otherworldly combination of design lab, resort, and training center. These chapters focus on Merriam and Jollis, a couple of its angelic employees. Humans, it seems, were not created by a single god figure but from blueprints by a committee known as “the brass,” executed by Merriam. Her prototype is exquisite, Jollis says—but she goes rogue and installs a flaw, an empty space next to its heart. Every human has that unfillable space, with a wide variety of results. In chapters labeled “before,” “after,” and “in the future,” one soul, presumably Elliot’s, learns all about it. The heavenly chapters are fun and often insightful, like an intriguing vision of the future in which pharmaceutical companies invent pills that “cure” emotions like sadness and fear, with unintended results. Butler creates likable characters, and his prose is polished and inviting, although sometimes the book’s warmly whimsical tone seems out of joint with the subjects of depression and suicide.
Celestial fantasy and somber reality combine in the story of a suicidal young man.
