''Before She Met Me'' is a novel by English writer

Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with ''The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with '' Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and '' Art ...

, first published in 1982 by

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...

. It is a black comedy which scrutinizes the awakening of sexual jealousy in a dull and otherwise sensible college lecturer.

Overview

After fifteen years of marriage to a nagging woman who despises everything about him Graham Hendrick files for divorce and marries Ann, a beautiful former actress and seemingly the woman of his dreams. Initially he believes this to be the start of the good life and congratulates himself daily, hourly but as he learns more about Ann’s past he starts to obsess over the time before he knew her, resenting her previous love affairs, apparently unable to accept that she enjoyed a life at all before they met. As Graham imagines non-existent humiliations and concocts plans for revenge upon previous lovers his increasingly strange behaviour begins to alarm first his wife and then his friend Jack, whom he soon suspects of cuckolding him.

References

1982 British novels Black comedy books Novels by Julian Barnes Novels set in London Jonathan Cape books Novels about marriage {{1980s-novel-stub