"What if Snow White woke up and decided she didn’t much like Prince Charming? Something like that happens in Leavitt's latest novel . . . One character’s coma is only the first surprise in this satisfying story of middle-aged love." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “A page-turner by The New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of "A Mighty Blaze," this story about a nurse who falls into a coma raises issues of loyalty, friendship, love and life, all set to music.” —Good Morning America Online (New Must-Read Books for the Ultimate Escape in August) “By the author of 2010's best-selling Pictures of You, among other novels, it's a moving story with characters you can't help but care for, especially Stella, who must build a new life after her brush with death.” —AARP “2020 Summer Book Preview: 12 Unique Novels to Choose From” “Leavitt’s seamless writing easily carries readers through the compelling story . . . Leavitt’s fans and readers of domestic drama will be thrilled.” —Booklist “A poignant, instantly compelling novel…This is an unflinchingly raw and honest novel, but it is also propulsive and suspenseful. The characters are so wholly realized and developed that they seem to move on their own, with Leavitt simply pulling the strings above them. She is a brave and risk-taking author, and With or Without You is a perfect picture of what she can do when left with a spark of inspiration and a gripping premise.”—Bookreporter.com “What I like best about Leavitt—her signature perhaps—is her fearlessness with plot. I’ll take a good coma story with a miracle recovery anytime.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Engaging, emotional, and even joyous, it may be the perfect novel for this moment in time . . . The prose is so propulsive I nearly got whiplash turning the pages.”—Long Island Woman Magazine “A redemption tale anchored in a medical chronicle, threaded with the finest filaments of magical realism."—The Santa Fe New Mexican “A wonderful novel about life as mess and disappointment, life as catastrophe and regret, but also life as transformation and resilience. Leavitt’s characters are great company, and watching them find a way forward in their suddenly altered world is a joy. Deeply engaging, tense but hopeful, and completely recommended.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves “With or Without You is a compulsively readable novel of artistic ambition and the various betrayals lovers and friends both endure and inflict on each other. It also asks fascinating questions about the stability of the self and our capacity—erhaps even our secret desire?—to reinvent ourselves. Caroline Leavitt is a born storyteller, and this is one knockout of a story.” —Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men “Caroline Leavitt has accomplished in With or Without You the hardest but most profound task of the novelist: she makes us not only understand but care about characters as flawed as ourselves. Stella, Simon, and Libby straddle the ravine between hip urbanity and soulful vulnerability—each achieving a redemption that gives us hope that we might too.” —Lisa Gornick, author of The Peacock Feast “With or Without You is a moving novel about twists of fate, the shifting terrain of love, and coming into your own. With tenderness and incisive insight, Leavitt spotlights a woman's unexpected journey towards her art.” —Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe “What a compelling, wonderful read this book is. With or Without You asks the great question of what happens to a long-loving couple if one of them changes utterly. This novel gives us high drama while keeping the fairest possible view of the messy lives of these characters. Another triumph for Caroline Leavitt.” —Joan Silber, bestselling author of Improvement “Caroline Leavitt's new novel With or Without You seduced me instantly and held my heart from the first page to the last. Like Elena Ferrante's raw and intimate explorations into human relationships, this novel will make you laugh, cry, yell, and possibly more. At the heart of the story is the art of a woman's life, pulsing with beauty, desire, loss, never-ending change, and the grit it takes to keep going.” —Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Book of Joan “It was if I were falling in love: flushed, fascinated, filled with hope, fear and joy. Leavitt's exploration of the many ways in which we change over the course of a lifetime—and how we keep or lose those we love throughout these mutations—is compassionate, profound and moving. Beyond being utterly captivated, I felt like I had grown wiser and more humane after reading this beautiful novel.” —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Translation “In With or Without You, Caroline Leavitt once again explores disaster's aftermath and its affect on the lives of ordinary people tethered by love and shared history. What makes this novel so poignant, and also makes it feel so true, is that there is no going back. There is only now, the newness of their altered realities and the courage to continue.” —Helen Schulman, bestselling author of This Beautiful Life and Come with Me “This fresh, engaging, intimate tale of love and identity subverts the reader’s expectations again and again. Caroline Leavitt refuses to take one clichéd turn. A complete original, an absolute delight.” —Janet Fitch, author of Chimes of a Lost Cathedral and White Oleander “After all of their lives are irrevocably altered by a single tragic incident, Stella, Simon, and Libby—the major characters in Caroline Leavitt’s compelling, deeply moving new novel—are forced to make complex choices between freedom and responsibility, love and loyalty. Leavitt depicts her characters without judgment, and by doing so compels readers to ask themselves what they might do in such difficult moments.” —Ron Rash, author of The Risen
★ 2020-05-18
What if Snow White woke up and decided she didn’t much like Prince Charming?
Something like that happens in Leavitt's latest novel. New Yorkers Simon and Stella have been a couple since the heady days when his rock band was almost famous. Now in their 40s, he’s still chasing musical fame while Stella, a skilled and well-regarded nurse, supports them both and generally is the adult in the relationship. The night before they’re supposed to leave for a gig in California that might be his big break, they have a nasty argument, drink a lot of wine, and, despite Stella’s aversion to drug abuse, share an unidentified pill. In the morning, Simon wakes up and Stella doesn’t. Her coma lasts for several months. The middle section of the book alternates among Simon’s anguished guilt and devotion to caring for her, Stella’s hallucinatory experiences while comatose, and the reactions of Stella’s best friend, Libby, who is one of the doctors treating her. Libby had never liked Simon but is impressed with his dedication; unlucky in love herself, she’s drawn to him. Sparks fly, but their loyalty to Stella counters the attraction. Then the patient awakes, and, as can happen after comas, her personality is quite different. The old Stella was cautious and always played by the rules; the new one is restless, reckless, and emotionally distant. The only thing that calms her is art. Compulsive doodling turns into startlingly accomplished drawings—a talent she had never displayed before. People begin to commission her probing portraits; in the meantime, Simon, kicked out of his band because he stayed at Stella’s bedside, is a Lyft driver. And Libby keeps swearing she won’t see Simon anymore and then opening the door when he buzzes. Leavitt expands the characters with backstories that have a common thread: Stella, Simon, and Libby all felt severely rejected by their parents in childhood. The upheavals in their lives caused by Stella’s coma and its aftermath lead to the exposures of old secrets, healed wounds, and surprising futures.
One character’s coma is only the first surprise in this satisfying story of middle-aged love.
