I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness
Books | Fiction / Family Life / General
3.4
(78)
Claire Vaye Watkins
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, VOGUE, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, NPR, ESQUIRE, AND KIRKUS“There’s some kind of genius sorcery in this novel. It’s startlingly original, hilarious and harrowing by turns, finally transcendent. Watkins writes like an avenging angel. It's thrilling and terrifying to stand in her wake.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse—one woman’s furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can’t go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world. Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness reaffirms Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.
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More Details:
Author
Claire Vaye Watkins
Pages
320
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2021-10-05
ISBN
0593330234 9780593330234
Community ReviewsSee all
"Hard to read, story is all over the place. I would have given up but I purchased the book so felt I had to finish it. "
m c
melanie cameron
"Gosh, this book spoke to me, from the future, a time traveler passing desert rocks of wisdom backwards, talking a butter knife to my fears of motherhood and spreading them open on the toasted rinds of my current plastic and brown paper package filled, busy for no apparent reason, running the same cyclical track over and over, worn treads of conversation shown threadbare when I really truly look into —my life.<br/><br/>It both validated I am this mythical dirtbag inside, that I will bite off my own arm to roll away in the early morning and run towards the mountains and the deserts. I found myself nodding and saying “too true, too true” and also saying “no, I’m not that much, yet am I?” <br/><br/>I felt comforted by Claire’s character, but also like a bright light shone in my face on a dark morning, discordant buzzing and children’s shrieking in the back of my head. Exposed for who I am, and for whom I also fear to be. Upon reading a little more into her author profile, I realized she isn’t quite this person either, or perhaps this is more honest and truthful than anything we project outwards.<br/><br/>Will I or won’t I? You can’t be half, can you? Once you make the choice then you have to continue walking the path, making the right choices; showing up, continuing to be within motherhood, losing our agency, losing our independence, but perhaps finding a certainty?<br/><br/>This one will make you think, and hurt, if you have ever wanted to feel the wind in your hair, or walked away from someone speaking without realizing it."
"A little confused at story time line but writing was great"
J c
Jessica clarke