52 pages • 1-hour read
Before We Were Strangers
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Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Do You Still Think of Me?: Matt”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content and substance use.
Thirty-six-year-old Matt Shore works at National Geographic. He’s been stationed at the New York office for several years. He loves his job but feels frustrated with his life. While sitting in his cubicle one day, he reflects on his former life in the field and how New York has changed since he got back. His coworker Scott stops by his desk and asks him to join him for lunch. When Matt’s ex-wife, Liz Hunt, walks past, Scott asks if it’s uncomfortable for Matt to work with her and her new husband, their other colleague Brad. Noticing Matt’s annoyance, Scott urges him to find another woman to sleep with.
On their way to lunch, Scott makes lewd comments about the women they pass. Matt ignores him. Then he notices a blonde woman on the subway platform rocking along to someone playing the violin. Just as she boards the train, he realizes the woman is Grace Starr. He races toward her train but is too late. Matt tells Scott he was with Grace before Liz. Scott suggests Matt try to get in touch with her.
After lunch, Matt unsuccessfully searches for Grace online. His mind wanders to when they were together 15 years prior. She still looked just as beautiful when he saw her earlier that day. Meanwhile, Liz and Brad announce to the office that Liz is pregnant. Matt sends Liz a congratulatory email that she doesn’t appreciate.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Five Days After I Saw You: Matt”
For the next week, Matt rides the F train every day at lunch looking for Grace. He doesn’t see her. Meanwhile, his requests for field work are denied. He is resentful watching Liz and Brad prepare for parenthood. He wishes he could leave New York again, as the city doesn’t feel the same.
One day, Scott catches Matt musing on his stagnating life in the break room. Scott suggests his situation might be why Liz cheated on him with Brad years prior. He then encourages Matt to find another woman, suggesting he look for Grace on social media. Matt isn’t sure. Instead, he reiterates his request for a transfer.
After work, he sits outside on a bench with his Pentax camera from college and takes a few photos while thinking about Grace. He remembers them discovering New York together, wondering how so much time has passed.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Five Weeks After I Saw You: Matt”
Five weeks later, Scott bugs Matt about Grace again. Matt has been looking for her but still hasn’t found her. Scott suggests he post a Missed Connections ad on Craigslist. Matt finds the page, reads a few posts, and then posts a letter to Grace. In the letter, he describes meeting at NYU 15 years ago and becoming fast friends. They fell in love but “it all fell apart” when Matt left for his National Geographic internship (20). When he returned to New York, Grace was gone. He wonders if things soured after the wedding. He explains that he saw her again recently and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He leaves his number if she wants to meet up for a drink.
Chapter 4 Summary: “When I Met You: Matt”
The narrative shifts 15 years into the past. Matt is settling into the Senior House dorm after transferring from USC when he runs into Grace. He’s immediately taken by her appearance. They introduce themselves and chat about their majors while helping each other move their things in. Matt is studying photography and Grace is studying music. Grace notices a photo Matt took of a naked woman and suggests modeling for him sometime. Then they chat about the music they like and Matt puts on a CD. That night, Matt hears Grace practicing her cello through the wall. Matt calls his mom Aletha the next morning. He mentions making friends with Grace, which pleases Aletha.
Chapter 5 Summary: “You Were Like a Light: Matt”
Matt leaves his door cracked over the following days in hopes of seeing Grace again. She stops by one day and invites Matt to lunch. Matt can’t find his belt before they leave, so Grace fashions him a makeshift one using two shoelaces. On their way to lunch, Grace apologizes if her and her friend Tatiana’s practicing was too loud the night before. Matt assures her he enjoyed it and changes the topic to relationships. Grace explains that she doesn’t date and Matt explains that his ex, Monica, is now engaged to his brother Alexander. They chat about their majors until reaching the New York Plasma Center. Grace explains that she’s short on money so she donates blood and plasma, gets free snacks, and is paid. Matt loves the idea and makes a donation, too.
Afterward, Matt and Grace head to Washington Square Park to smoke marijuana. Grace gets paranoid when she notices her music instructor, Professor Dan Pornsake, approaching them. Dan is pleasant to them but Matt teases Grace that he likes her. After he leaves, Matt lies on Grace’s lap and they talk and take photos. They agree that they’ve become fast friends.
Chapter 6 Summary: “I Needed to Know You: Matt”
Matt develops a photo of him and Grace and gives it to her outside Senior House. Afterward, they get into pajamas to have breakfast for dinner at the diner. Matt accidentally catches Grace changing and tries to dismiss his immediate arousal. Later, they meet up with Tatiana and her boyfriend, Brandon. The four go to the diner together.
After drinking and eating, Matt and Grace part ways with their friends. Matt takes Grace to the overpass, where he takes a photo of them using the timer. Grace realizes what time it is and they race back to the dorm. On the way, Grace asks how many women Matt has slept with and if he’s “ever been with a virgin” (55); Matt hasn’t. Before parting ways, Matt kisses her on the head and the cheek.
Fall turns to winter. Matt and Grace hang out every day, growing closer and closer, sharing music, photos, jokes, and outings. Meanwhile, they discover New York together. The city feels energizing to Matt, and he loves being there with Grace. They aren’t dating but Matt has stopped thinking about other girls.
One night, Matt and Grace drink and hang out in Matt’s room. Grace wears Matt’s t-shirt and Matt puts on music. They play games and talk about their friendship. Grace admits she loves being around Matt but doesn’t want him to pressure her. Her parents’ fraught relationship has made her careful about dating. Matt understands. He kisses her cheek before they say goodnight.
Chapter 7 Summary: “You Were My Muse: Matt”
In the photo lab the next day, Matt’s professor encourages his work. He urges Matt to pursue a National Geographic internship instead of a career in advertising photography. Matt is shocked and delighted. Outside afterward, he runs into Grace wearing a hospital gown. She tells him not to worry; she’s just doing a medical study for some extra cash.
When Matt presses her to explain, Grace reveals that she’s had to financially help her family. She pawned her cello to cover her tuition; now she needs to buy it back. Matt tells her to quit the study and takes her to the pawn shop to buy back the cello. He empties his bank account. Later he calls his dad Charles and asks for a loan, explaining that his friend is in trouble. Charles doesn’t approve of Matt’s artistic pursuits but finally agrees to help. Once the call ends, Matt realizes he loves Grace.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
Matt and Grace’s unexpected encounter on the subway platform spurs Matt into remembrance, reflection, and change. This encounter also acts as the novel’s inciting incident. In the narrative present, Matt is feeling stuck. Although he’s living in a city he loves and working a job he cares about, he has been “rejecting change, ignoring the world, shrugging off anything that threatened to have meaning or relevance” (3). At 36 years old, he is also divorced, single, and a workaholic. Therefore, when Grace suddenly resurfaces in Matt’s life, she upsets Matt’s stagnant reality. Grace’s appearance on the subway platform is symbolic of disruption and change. She is also a representation of Matt’s past: Seeing her thus tugs his narrative into sequences from his former life and incites the temporal shift between Chapters 3 and 4.
The temporal shift from the narrative present into Matt and Grace’s college life 15 years prior launches the novel’s exploration of The Enduring Impact of First Love. When Matt first sees Grace on the F train, he “look[s] like [he] saw a ghost” (8). Grace is a reminder of the life Matt once had and the love he once shared with Grace. Despite all of the time that has passed since they first met and knew each other, Matt becomes entirely consumed with memories of her throughout the subsequent chapters. These memories prove even more visceral and real than Matt’s life in the present, which is void of color, joy, or inspiration.
Chapters 1 through 7 are all written from Matt’s first-person point of view; changes in Matt’s narrative tone over the course of this excerpt capture how seeing Grace (even from afar) is already changing Matt’s perspective. In Chapters 1 through 3, Matt is consumed with the banality of his own life and uses a defeated, pessimistic tone to describe his mundane experiences. After he sees Grace, his narration assumes a more reflective, nostalgic tone. These tonal mutations convey how much Grace meant to Matt, reinforcing Matt’s continued attachment to her. Matt muses that “[t]ime passes, life goes on, places change, people change” (15), but he can still remember and feel the veracity of his and Grace’s connection. Matt’s love for her was so profound years prior that it has endured the test of time.
The flashback sequences in Chapters 4 through 7 use the start of Matt and Grace’s relationship to explore Artistic Passion as a Source of Bonding. When the two meet, Matt feels immediately attracted to Grace’s beauty and demeanor, but what really brings the two together is their mutual appreciation for artistic creation and expression. Matt is a photographer and Grace is a musician. They are pursuing different artistic fields but they both have a profound appreciation for the creative process. Furthermore, both characters see the world via art. Their distinct modes of seeing, perceiving, and interpreting their experiences are inspired by their individual artistic instincts. Therefore, when they first meet they discover an immediate point of connection because they both have artistic sensibilities.
The way they interact with one another’s artwork shows that their personal artistic passions are bringing them together. For example, when Grace is helping Matt unpack his things in his dorm room, she finds his “best work from USC […] matted inside a leather portfolio” and “immediately grab[s] it and beg[ins] flipping through the pages” (25). Grace is particularly taken by Matt’s nude photo of a beautiful young woman and openly expresses her appreciation for Matt’s eye. Her response to Matt’s work shows that she understands his artistic impulses.
The same is true of how Matt responds to Grace’s passion for music. He falls “asleep to the sound of her practicing late into the night” (30) and makes no complaints that he can hear her cello through the wall. The two also begin to play and share music with one another—another form of bonding that lets the characters connect on an unspoken level. The closer they get, the more photos they take of and with each other, too—a new pastime that also represents bonding and connectivity. These dynamics capture how a shared appreciation for the arts might foster mysterious and ineffable forms of intimacy for Matt and Grace.
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