Coe writes incredible short novels that pack detail, sadness, and hope into a few pages.
This book is a great example. A mere 240 pages, it includes several lifetimes into its chapters, and tells the story of a family that is both more and less than what it seems on the outside.
By the way, the great title comes from a child in the novel, who tells her aunts she likes "the rain before it falls." When others tell her that isn't rain, she replies that is why she likes it.
Coe tells the story from the point of view of Rosamond, a dying, elderly woman who is searching for a young, distant cousin she doesn't know all that well, because she had met her only a few times. But Imogen had made a great impact, and Rosamond knows the young girl's history and wants to pass it along. To do so, she leaves her niece and heir a package asking that she find and deliver it to Imogen. Because Gill cannot find Imogen after a few months, she takes the second option: to listen to the tapes herself.
Rosamond has recorded the girl's history through the use of 20 photographs, which she describes and then tells the stories behind them. Together, they relate a family tale that grows from disturbing to devastating.
It's an interesting narrative device, letting the story be told in a mostly chronological order, but opening up new avenues with anecdotes about those in the pictures. As we learn more and more, the pieces begin to tie together, consistently letting us in on the family's struggles and seeing the effects of the decisions they made.
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