The crushing burdens of beauty and adulation
Before
By Irini Spanidou
Knopf, 212 pp., $23
Beatrice James isn't just easy on the eyes. She's fetching. And she isn't just fetching. She's a knockout. And she isn't just a knockout. She's a work of art, as visually arresting as a Fabergé egg, as a California redwood, as a baby lynx cuddled up against the mama lynx . . . or so it would seem.
Much is made of Beatrice's physical magnificence in "Before," Irini Spanidou's third novel. It's no accident that Beatrice shares the name of the lovely muse who served as Dante's unrequited love. The supporting characters spend much of their time staring at Beatrice, objectifying Beatrice, projecting all their hopes and dreams upon Beatrice -- and meanwhile, Beatrice herself drifts along from one Scotch-sodden encounter to another.
Set in New York's SoHo district in the 1970s, the book chronicles three months in Beatrice's life. In this pre-gentrification era, SoHo was not the mecca of art galleries and upscale boutiques that it is today; instead, it was a crumbling neighborhood attracting drug addicts and struggling artists looking to live on the cheap. Beatrice has the misfortune of being married to one such artist, the foulmouthed painter Ned, who spends his time drinking, philandering, and verbally pummeling his wife into submission. Ned treats Beatrice with disrespect because she allows him to; at least, that's his justification for his cruel and unusual behavior. And Beatrice, who remembers the good times, never once contemplates fighting back: "She knew him," Spanidou writes. "Her own self she did not know. When things started to fall apart, no ground was left for her to stand on. She had given herself over to him completely. Without him, she believed, she was nothing."
It's difficult to feel invested in a character like Beatrice, who is little more than a cipher. But apparently that's enough for the men in her circle, a collection of would-be suitors that includes Ned's Vietnam-vet brother Cyril, string-bean musician Colin, and teenage junkie Chris. Then there's Faye Knowles, a busty and lusty soap actress who has known Beatrice since childhood. Faye objectifies Beatrice just as much as the men in the group, but she's the only one who sees the intelligence behind the beauty. Indeed, back in the day, Beatrice was a high achiever, a student who excelled at everything she tried. Faye sees the despairing Beatrice as a shell of her former self; like this reader, she longs to shake her old pal into action. Beatrice herself blames her beauty for her present-day problems. "An ugly woman, she imagined, knew she was loved for herself when she was loved."
Spanidou's notion of beauty as a prison is hardly a new one, having served as a theme in art both high (the Greek myth about ultra-vain Narcissus) and low (the much-lampooned "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" hair-care commercials of the 1980s). Unfortunately, Spanidou's depiction of Beatrice doesn't bring anything new to the discussion. Instead, it seems an attempt to win readers' sympathy and lend Beatrice's ongoing drunken plight some gravitas.
"Before" is not a plotless book, but it feels like one; it has little sense of movement. Beatrice herself is like a top spinning from one scenario to another, with barely the strength to articulate a preference, a will, a choice. Even when she struggles to bring some meaning to her life -- as when she attempts to resurrect an unfinished college thesis -- there is something halfhearted about the endeavor. It becomes clear that it's not just her beauty that compels Beatrice's acquaintances to objectify her; it's the way she negotiates life in such a helpless manner.
Spanidou's tendency toward purple prose doesn't help matters. Every physical detail is plump with meaning; eyes are never just eyes. Witness this description of Cyril: "He had intelligent eyes that were hard with smoldering rage and seemed to judge without admitting doubt. Looking at her, as he drank, a gleam of pain came to their surface, giving them sudden, jarring depth."
The book's setting provides some element of interest. Spanidou evokes the era when New York City, now so scrubbed up and tourist-friendly, was regarded as a genuinely dangerous place.
It's within this urban jungle that the book ends unexpectedly on a note of optimism. It's a moving moment, though it doesn't really jibe with what came before. One gets the sense that Spanidou was determined to give Beatrice a proper send-off, to conclude a dark tale with some semblance of hope.
Amy Kroin's reviews have appeared in The 