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Life Before Man

By: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Deborah Burgess, Libby Lennie, Geoff Bowes
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Publisher's summary

From the author of the New York Times best-selling novels The Handmaid’s Tale - now an Emmy Award-winning Hulu original series - and Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series.

Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices - after the rules have changed. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man. She has just lost her latest lover to suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men. Hanging over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover...and the dizzying threat of three lives careening inevitably toward the same climax.

©1979 O.W. Toad Limited 1979 (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
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What listeners say about Life Before Man

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The title still perplexes me.

Interesting character development but a mundane story nevertheless.
I suppose the title refers to the fact that people never really evolve… either like Auntie Muriel because they don’t want to or like Nate because they are stuck or Elizabeth seething…..or like Lasja waiting…..

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Not my favorite

Margaret Atwood is in my top author list, but this was honestly a disappointment. Although beautifully written by Atwood, I agree with other reviewers that nothing really happened. I would say skip this one...

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5 people found this helpful