Before I Say Good-bye draws attention to women's interests and the professional classes, but neither its feminism nor its professionalism is clearly defined. While it focuses on female independence and intelligence, it also assumes female vulnerability. Similarly, while it spotlights the professional classes, it conveys the point of view of social misfits like Jed Kaplan and Karen Renfrew. Insofar as the novel furnishes an array of voices from the social spectrum, it may have more egalitarian sympathies than its concentration on the lives of the privileged initially suggests. The social concerns, themes, and characters that Clark introduces address these two issues, working both with and against each other to compli cate the novel's stance. Her novel both creates and reflects the complexity with which the issues of feminism and elitism have been debated within American society itself.

1. To what extent is this novel a feminist murder...