Before You Know Kindness: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Chris Bohjalian (Author) "The bullet-cylindriform as a rocket but tapering to a point almost sharp enough to prick skin with a casual touch-was two and a half inches..." (more)
Key Phrases: ballistics lab, gun bag, gun company, New Hampshire, New York, Sugar Hill (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
If you imagine most writer's bathrooms (and this is probably a mistake) you'd picture damp towels in a clump on the floor, hair in the soap, a few mildewed paperbacks stacked on the counter. But it's impossible to picture Chris Bohjalian's bathroom as anything but an Architectural Digest centerfold: polished counters, not a stray thread on the plush towels, the modulated colors sparked to life by fresh flowers from a neighbor's garden.

Bohjalian's eighth novel, Before You Know Kindness, is a beautifully observed, delicately balanced portrait of a family that could only come from the hands of a tireless craftsman who keeps reaching into his story to straighten the tulips or tuck in a shirttail. It begins with two EMTs leaning over animal rights' activist Spencer McCullough's gushing shotgun wound and winds back through the ordinary days leading up to the extraordinary accident, and then forward again as Spencer and his family come to terms with what has happened. As ambitious as other Bohjalian novels, Before You Know Kindness spirals out to encompass the larger issues of Spencer's political loyalties and the heartless, passionate world of political spin. Some readers may find Bohjalian's style too smooth. Others will relish the completeness of his vision and his obvious tenderness for even the most difficult of his characters. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
Bohjalian's new novel begins with a literal bang: a bullet from a hunting rifle accidentally strikes Spencer McCullough, an extreme advocate for animal rights, leaving him seriously wounded. The weapon—owned by his brother-in-law, John, and shot by his 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte—becomes the center of a lawsuit and media circus led by Spencer's employer, FERAL (Federation for Animal Liberation), a dead ringer for PETA. The many-faceted satire Bohjalian (Midwives, etc.) crafts out of these events revolves around Spencer and Jon's families, but also involves a host of secondary figures. Bohjalian excels at getting inside each character's head with shifts of diction and perspective, though he makes it difficult for readers to connect with any one in particular. This is in part because his portraits are often unsympathetic; the characters are allowed to hoist themselves on their own petards. While some are credibly flawed—Spencer is both a loving father and an obnoxious activist—others are cartoonishly mocked with their own thoughts, like high-powered attorney Paige, who mourns the loss of her leather chairs and briefcases, hidden away for as long as FERAL is a lucrative client. If there is a grounded center to this work, it is 10-year-old Willow, Spencer's niece, who distinguishes herself from this baggy ensemble by always trying to do the right thing. She alone is spared the narrator's irony, and it is Willow, years after the accident, who has the last word. Bohjalian's skewering of the animal rights movement gets the better of his domestic drama, but his skillful storytelling will engage readers.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books; 1 edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400047455
• ISBN-13: 978-1400047451
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #444,263 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful and engrossing domestic drama., October 10, 2004

By	E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Chris Bohjalian specializes in the dissection of families in crisis. In "Midwives" and "The Buffalo Soldier," to name two of his best works, Bohjalian shows how previously happy families are brought low by the vicissitudes of life and by their own frailties.

"Before You Know Kindness" (a mushy title that does not do justice to this fine book) tells the story of the Seton clan. Nan Seton is a widowed, wealthy, and endlessly energetic matriarch who spends her winters in her large apartment in Manhattan and her summers in the family home in New Hampshire. Every summer, Nan invites her son and daughter, John and Catherine, along with their spouses and children, to spend some time with her. Under Nan's direction, the family participates in an endless and dizzying round of athletic and social activities.

The book opens with a horrifying scene in which Spencer McCullough, Nan Seton's son-in-law, is accidentally shot in the shoulder, and very nearly killed, by his twelve-year-old daughter, Charlotte. Spencer is an animal rights activist whose fanaticism on the subject is comic fodder for Bohjalian. Whether he is forcing inedible foods down his family's throats or insisting that his relatives wear plastic shoes, not leather, Spencer is unyielding in his insistence that no living thing with a parent should be a source of food or clothing for human beings. Spencer's overbearing personality and frequent absences from home have already alienated his wife, Catherine, who is ready to give up on her marriage.

After Charlotte, an irritating child who thinks she knows everything (not unlike Spencer), shoots her father, the entire family goes into shock. This event shakes up everyone's comfortable assumptions about their lives and one another, and it forces them to reevaluate what is really important to them.

Bohjalian is an expert at finding and articulating the telling detail that brings an event or an individual to life. For example, in the prologue, Bohjalian immediately grabs the reader's attention by providing an extensive description of the bullet that hits Spencer, the anatomical damage that it inflicts, and the heroic efforts of the EMT's who fight to keep Spencer alive until he reaches the hospital. The many scenes like this throughout the book draw the reader into the action, as if the author is engaged in an intense conversation with us in his living room.

Chris Bohjalian is an intimate writer, who examines each character minutely, showing us both their strengths and weaknesses, but always preserving their humanity. "Before You Know Kindness" is filled with gentle humor, sharp dialogue, and careful plotting. My two quibbles are the book's length and the pat ending. At over four hundred pages, the novel sags at times, and it could have been trimmed by at least fifty pages. In addition, Bohjalian wraps up his story a bit too neatly. However, the author's deep understanding of both children and adults impresses me, and I love how he opens a window into each character's mind and heart. No one depicts a family, with its disappointments, tragedies, hopes, and triumphs, with more skill and compassion than Chris Bohjalian.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Layered personalities and layered motives. I loved it!, October 8, 2006

By	Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The book opens with the description of a gunshot wound. There's no mystery. We know right away that Spencer McCullough, while visiting his mother-in-law in New Hampshire with his wife and family, is accidentally shot by his 12-year old daughter, Charlotte. He doesn't die but the wound has destroyed his shoulder. He will never be able to use his arm again and it will eventually have to be amputated.

We then flash back a few days and we get to meet the family. They're upscale and, this home in New Hampshire is Nan McCullough's second home. During the winter months she lives in a sprawling Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. Her daughter Sara is married to Spencer, who is works as an animal rights activist and makes speeches around the country. To many, people including myself, he seems a bit of a nutjob because he doesn't even allow his daughter to wear leather shoes or ever visit a zoo. Also visiting their mother that week is Nan's other grown child, John, a lawyer, married to Sara, a psychologist. They have a 10-year old daughter, Willow, and a newborn baby boy. They live in Vermont, and even though they understand the animal rights issues, John has recently taken up hunting and has left a gun with a bullet in the back of his car.

How this all plays out is complicated and intriguing. The author uses a lot of words and brings out the subtleties of everyone's personality. He is especially insightful regarding the children. I understood exactly what each individual was going though, both before and after the gunshot incident. This is a book with layered personalities and layered motives. I got to know each character deeply. The experience of reading the book was like just joining in on their lives.

But this book is more than just about the relationships among the people. Central to the theme is the animal rights movement. There is a potential lawsuit against the gun manufacturer with full blown media attention. Is this motive really altruistic? Is it about ambition? What about the relationship between the wounded father and his sorrowful daughter? There's also a secret that the two young girls know about the shooting that night that could change everything. What happens in the next few months? And how does it all end?

The book is 422 pages and I read it rather quickly. And during the time I was reading it I felt I knew every person intimately. The way the book was constructed just pulled me right in. I thought about it constantly and pondered the moral questions it brought up. This is a good read. It also made me think.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thank Goodness for the Prologue, January 3, 2005

By	Richard A. Mitchell (candia, new hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If it were not for the Prologue, nothing concrete would have happened in this novel for the first 160 pages or so. It was a slow start to an excellent expose of people's true characters and motivations.

As one can tell by the prologue, a man is shot by his 12 year old daughter. What the prologue does not tell you is who these people are or why he was shot. Mr. Bohjalian then spends a bit too long "introducing" the characters - a brother and sister, their mother, daughters and spouses. After the episode with the gun, the novel really picks up and grabs the reader.

The conflicts are endless among the characters who are related. The author then brings in lawyers and animal rights activists who all have their agendas and want to superimpose them on the family that is quickly crumbling under the stress of the accidental (or was it) shooting.

There is no romance or chivalry in Mr. Bohjalian's characters. He strips them to their basest personalities. They therefore are not likeable, but they are thoroughly understandable. The characters as portrayed are probably the most realistic possible - do we really have nobililty and romance in our lives? Do we really have those assets when tragedy hits? We would like to think we do, but this novel hits home as the characters act, think and say what we would all probably be thinking in their place, even if we do not go through with our thoughts. For example, if you are left crippled by a stupid mistake of your brother-in-law, wouldn't you rather not speak to him than forgive and forget?

The characters are very realistically portrayed. Their emotions are brutally displayed. The only character a reader can root for is the ten year old cousin, Willow. Her innocence and lack of alterior motives makes her likeable and gives the view we would like to see. The other characters display those qualities we all have but would like to keep hidden.

Bohjalian is similar to Wolf in his portrayal of less than sympathetic characters, but somehow, for me, he does it better. A reader does not come to hate any of the characters (although the man shot is an annoyingly fanatic animal rights guy) because they all ring to too true to ourselves. They do nothing hateful, only what we would do if left to our own selves in difficult situations.

Along with the character portrayals, the author brings to the table such issues, as gun control, hunting and animal rights. Since both sides of every issue are presented there appears to be no agenda by the author.

The writing is superb. After the shooting, when all the conflicts hit, the book really captures the reader and moves much better.

A very good read. A very good portrayal of realistic characters.