Life Before Man

Life Before Man vividly portrays three people in thrall to the tragicomedy some call love - a particularly complicated love triangle that sets this poetic Margaret Atwood novel in motion. 

Elizabeth and Nate, though habitually unfaithful to each other, have remained married for more than a decade. But after Elizabeth’s latest lover commits suicide, she emerges from her grief to find that her gentle, indecisive husband is on the verge of leaving her. He has become enamoured of Lesje, a young paleontologist and perennial innocent who seems to prefer dinosaur fossils to humans. Elizabeth sets her sights on Lesje’s live-in boyfriend, William, and the ensuing emotional maelstrom threatens to upend all of their lives. 

Blending painful honesty with cutting satire, Margaret Atwood gives us characters whose haunting dilemmas linger long after the final page.

• Life Before Man is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1979 and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award.