No spoilers here. 
Before the Fall
by Noah Hawley
Noah Hawley's novel, Before the Fall, is about the news media and questions the role of journalism. Ask yourself if you watch the news to be informed or to be entertained. Why can't it be both? Because they're two different genres that most of the time don't gel together and trying to do both too often leads to sensationalism.
The storyline of Before the Fall involves a plane crash where only two characters survive. The novel will explain who is who and why they are on this particular plane at this particular moment in time. Because the people on that plane are high profile millionaires the media descends upon the story like the Pharisees upon Christ.
Once the facts of the incident are known, the news starts to speculate and influence the public. The hero who saved a four-year child by swimming all night with a dislocated shoulder is vilified. The reader will see our hero's stock plummet due to the machinations of a journalist and his news outlet.
It's painful to read.
But it's not the whole story. Our hero doesn't cave. He gives as much as he's gotten. He's the moral example of how to behave. (There is literally no explicit sex scenes.) Sex, money, and fame are not important. Children are. And saving and protecting a child defines heroism.
The storyline of Before the Fall involves a plane crash where only two characters survive. The novel will explain who is who and why they are on this particular plane at this particular moment in time. Because the people on that plane are high profile millionaires the media descends upon the story like the Pharisees upon Christ.
Once the facts of the incident are known, the news starts to speculate and influence the public. The hero who saved a four-year child by swimming all night with a dislocated shoulder is vilified. The reader will see our hero's stock plummet due to the machinations of a journalist and his news outlet.
It's painful to read.
But it's not the whole story. Our hero doesn't cave. He gives as much as he's gotten. He's the moral example of how to behave. (There is literally no explicit sex scenes.) Sex, money, and fame are not important. Children are. And saving and protecting a child defines heroism.
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