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Mariner Books
June 2016
On Sale: June 14, 2016
Featuring: Althea; Clem
ISBN: 0544263685
EAN: 9780544263680
Kindle: B011H55KLU
Paperback / e-Book
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Literature and Fiction | Fiction
For most of their marriage, Althea has fluctuated between extreme depressive and manic states β what she calls βthe Tombsβ and βthe Visionsβ β and Oliver has been the steady hand that guided her to safety. This summer, Althea decides that she will be different from here on. She will be the loving, sexy wife Oliver wants, and the reliable, affectionate mother their nine year-old daughter Clem deserves. Her plan: to bring Clem to their Easthampton home once school is out β with no βsummer girlβ to care for her this time β and become βnormal.β But Oliver is distant and controlling, and his relationship with their interior decorator seems a bit too close; Clem has learned to be self-sufficient, and getting to know her now feels like very hard work for Althea. Into this scene enters the much younger, David Foster Wallaceβreading house painter, who reaches something in Althea that has been long buried. Fearless, darkly funny, and compulsively readable, If You Left explores the complex dance that is the bipolar marriage, and the possibility that to move forward, we might have to destroy the very things we've worked hardest to build.
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