Before, During, After

Natasha, a lonely congressional aide, meets Michael Faulk, a priest struggling with his faith. Love blossoms over the spring and summer of 2001. A month before their wedding, Natasha is on a trip in Jamaica and Michael is in New York when the World Trade Center is attacked. That same day, Natasha endures a private trauma of her own: she is raped by a young man on the shores of the Caribbean. She and Michael are soon reunited, but the horror of that day, and Natasha's inability to speak of it, means that there will forever be a sharp line that divides their relationship into before and after.

Richard Bausch is the author of twelve novels and eight volumes of short stories. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Playboy, GQ, Harper's Magazine, and other publications and has been featured in numerous best-of collections, including O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South. He is a graduate of Iowa's MFA program is currently a professor of English at Chapman University in Orange, California.