A Life Before: First Chapters Sample to Download
Download and share this sample of the first chapters of A Life Before, the coming-of-age story of Maud Gonne and W.B. Yeats
As you may know, I am serialising my next novel, A Life Before, right here on Substack, in the oldest tradition of the novel: the instalment.
This is how Dickens published, how Eliot published, how Gaskell and Dostoevsky and Stowe published — in parts, mailed out to readers who waited and were changed by the waiting. As the story lived between episodes, turning in the reader’s mind at a pace close to that of real life, the rhythm of anticipation and returning made it matter more.
Substack is making all of that possible for fiction lovers again—and with one thing those nineteenth-century readers never had: you can write back. Tell me who you’re rooting for, what you think of Rosy’s interpretations, if you spot a typo…
Each episode is written to stand alone, to be a satisfying piece in itself, while moving the story forward and building, over time, into a whole. You can read at your own pace, join at any point, and find your place easily using the story index page. (Scroll down for Chapter One and there are easy links from there).
I began serialising at the end of January, and I’ve just finished some behind-the-scenes improvements I needed to make before pressing on.
And I’ve also put together a sample of the first chapters for those who want to put those on an e-reader. I’ll also provide each act in that format when complete (there are five acts in all). When we get to Act 5, the story will go behind a paywall to be fair to those who will buy the book.
A Life Before is the story of Maud Gonne and W.B. Yeats’s coming-of-age.
Born into privilege but betrayed by those who should have protected her, Maud Gonne is determined to live at full blaze — breaking every rule of 1880s convention, if that is what it takes. But even the cleverest, most spirited young woman cannot entirely outrun her times.
Told in the magical voice of Rosy Cross, ‘the oldest woman in Ireland,’ A Life Before is a true-life story of first love and first power: a portrait of two larger-than-life characters before the world knew their names.
This sample contains the opening chapters of Maud Gonne’s story, introducing her family and Lucien Millevoye, the seductive politician who encourages her to become Ireland’s Joan of Arch.
It also has the first of the ten conversations W.B. Yeats has with the people who shape him—and whom he must outgrow if he is to be worthy of Maud Gonne.
This is a work in progress, and that is precisely the point. You are not being handed a finished object—you are being invited into the hot heat of creation, where the story is still alive and still becoming.
If Rosy’s voice catches you, if Maud’s blazing, baffling choices make you want to know what she does next — then come and join us. The series is all here, waiting for you, and there is nothing I would like more than your company for the journey.