Review: Before the Fall

Before the Fall
by Noah Hawley

Rating: 3/5 stars
Recommend: No

For 18 minutes one Sunday night a Red Sox player has the longest time at bat in history. In that short frame a plane takes off from Martha's Vineyard and crashes into the Atlantic. Scott, an artist traveling back to New York City for gallery meetings was invited last minute to join the Batemans and their friends the Kiplings and wasn't supposed to be on the plane at all. Suddenly, he finds himself floating in the water, little recollection to the events leading up to the crash. By some really great luck, Scott is a trained open water swimmer and manages to get himself and the other survivor, a small boy, back to the shore with a dislocated shoulder. Why did the plane crash? Why was Scott on the plane? Was he involved in the crash? These are questions that everyone, including the Batemans news anchor friend, want answered in the aftermath of the tragedy. This book had great potential. The set up could have led to a great book about Scott's life after the crash- how he was dealing, how he faced the media, and where to go next. That is what Hawley did... kind of. We do get details on Scott's current life, but very little background on him, instead we get countless pages on the backstory behind the other characters on the plane. Some of it is relevant, much of it I could have done without. I either felt the backstory on the dead passengers was too little or too much; Hawley should have expanded it or left it out entirely. If a story is going to go there, give the whole story, make me feel for these people. Don't give me 30 pages on the months leading up the accident and then never return to their story. The novel flickered between behind-the-scenes of being a plane crash survivor, the personal lives of others on the plane, and the investigation. All fronts seemed wildly under explored. Many of the details about Martha's Vineyard were also off-base. If you're going to make a setting the central part of the novel, at least do some research. Was the book enjoyable? Sort of. Was I left feeling satisfied with the end of the book? No, it was disappointing, to say the least.