Porter Square Neighbors Association

The year is 1880 and the place is Venice. Marian Evans--whose novels appear under the pen name George Eliot and have made her one of the most famous Englishwomen of her time--has come to this enchanted city on her honeymoon. Newly married to John Cross, twenty years her junior, she hopes to put to rest all of her guilt. The parallel story of a sculptress named Caroline Spingold brings us to Venice one hundred years later, in 1980. Linked by city, as well as by themes of art, love, and marriage, The World Before Her tells of these two women--and their surprising similarities--in alternating chapters.

Weisgall has written extensively about the arts--painting, music, performance--for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, Connoisseur, and The New Yorker. Her first novel, Still Point, was set in the world of ballet, and her family memoir, A Joyful Noise, focused on the role of music--both operatic and cantorial--in her father's celebrated lineage.