> Skip to content
  • Published: 9 August 2005
  • ISBN: 9781400031658
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories:

Before You Know Kindness

A Novel





NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Flight Attendant, here is a novel that examines wildly divisive American issues like gun control and animal rights with Chris Bohjalian’s trademark emotional heft and spellbinding storytelling skill.

For ten summers, the Seton family—all three generations—met at their country home in New England to spend a week together playing tennis, badminton, and golf, and savoring gin and tonics on the wraparound porch to celebrate the end of the season. In the eleventh summer, everything changed. A hunting rifle with a single cartridge left in the chamber wound up in exactly the wrong hands at exactly the wrong time, and led to a nightmarish accident that put to the test the values that unite the family—and the convictions that just may pull it apart. 

Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!

  • Published: 9 August 2005
  • ISBN: 9781400031658
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories:

Also by Chris Bohjalian

See all

Praise for Before You Know Kindness

"A modern, compelling drama.... Bohjalian beautifully captures those dizzying moments that follow a tragedy.... In this novel, our eyes are opened to the possibility of redemption, even in these careless times." --San Francisco Chronicle

Gunfire and its aftermath force the survivors to confront a surprisingly complicated question: How best to live? . . . Before You Know Kindness is messier, funnier and, I think, better [than Midwives]." --The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary.... Bohjalian has had much success in the past, including a selection as an Oprah Book Club author. Before You Know Kindness is better than anything he's written before." --The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel