Bright Before Us

Facing the prospect of fatherhood, disillusioned by his fledgling teaching career, and mourning the loss of a fraught former relationship, 25-year-old Francis Mason is a prisoner of his past mistakes. But when his second-grade class discovers a dead body during a field trip to a San Francisco beach, Francis spirals into unbearable grief and all-consuming paranoia. As his behavior grows increasingly erratic, and tensions arise with the school principal and the parents of his students, he faces the familiar urge to flee -- a choice that forces him to confront the character weaknesses that have shattered his life again and again -- and to accept the wrenching truth about the past he's never been able to move beyond.


Genre: Romance

"An eerie, impeccably told story." - Amy Hempel

"Katie Arnold-Ratliff writes sentences that have the luminous candor of X-rays, laser-traceries of the human heart." - Karen Russell