Short Synopsis
From Jeffrey Lent comes Before We Sleep, a novel about family, about family secrets, and about the love that holds families together.

Full Synopsis
Katey Snow, seventeen, slips the pickup into neutral and rolls silently out of the driveway of her Vermont home, her parents, Oliver and Ruth, still asleep. She isn't so much running away as on a journey of discovery. She carries with her a packet of letters addressed to her mother from an old army buddy of her father's. She has only recently been told that Oliver, who she adores more than anyone, isn't her biological father. She hopes the letter's sender will have answers to her many questions.

Before We Sleep moves gracefully between Katey's perspective on the road and her mother, Ruth's. Through Ruth's recollections, we learn of her courtship with Oliver, their marriage on the eve of war, and his return as a changed man. Oliver had always been a bit dreamy, but became more remote, finding solace most of all in repairing fiddles. There were adjustments, accommodations, sacrifices—but the family went on to find its own rhythms, satisfactions, and happiness. Now Katey's journey may rearrange the Snows' story.

"An inherently insightful and entertaining read that will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to community library collections." ---Midwest Book Review

"Beautifully written and powerfully compassionate: more fine work from a modern master." ---Kirkus

"Lent’s fine prose depicts the touching physical and emotional journeys of the Snow family against a backdrop of the magical New England landscape." ---Publishers Weekly

"Elegiac . . . Chronicling Katey's parents' fledgling marriage with piercing acuity, Lent devotes half the narrative to that earlier generation . . . Luxurious and deliberate . . . For admirers of Emma Cline's The Girls, here is a less sensational but worthy companion." ---Library Journal

"Lent returns to familiar territory here: complicated familial relationships and the effects of war. In third-person, stream-of-consciousness prose, he combines exacting descriptions of the everyday with a realism that alternates between illuminating and mundane. . . . The Vermont setting is well realized . . . Lent’s characterization rings true." ---Booklist