Preview of Before I Say Good-bye Summary:

Invasion is Clark's primary thematic focus in Before 1 Say Good-bye. As she reveals in an interview with Claire E. White, "I write about very nice people whose lives are invaded. They're not screeching at each other at the breakfast table. Something happens that cuts across their lives. They have to respond to it and solve the problem. . . .

It's not American Beauty; it's not that kind of relationship at all. I choose to write about people whose trouble comes from the outside, not the inside." In other words, it is not psychological, but social disruption that intrigues Clark. As the novel describes the attack on Nell's life by her husband, it correlates this abuse to larger social problems: women's victimization by men and the threat to the professional classes by the refractory rabble. Before I Say Good-bye presents us with an insular world of privilege, where a woman may...