Take Me With You
College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband Norman wake up one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will he ever return? Jesse knew they were longing for something. But had Norman been so stuck that his only option was to leave Jesse behind?
As Jesse struggles to understand Norman’s disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? He is, after all, alone for the first time in his adult life. Should he return to the classroom? Put in a pool? Get a dog? Call his estranged mother? What does it mean to be alone when you’ve always been one half of a whole?
When Norman’s sister Lally lands on Jesse’s doorstep with an urgent request, Norman’s absence becomes even more profound. Add to Jesse’s grief and confusion a conspiracy-theorist neighbor, a stranger following him, and suspicions that he may have had a hand in Norman’s disappearance, and Jesse starts to crack under the pressure. With his husband missing and the world closing in, all eyes are on Jesse. Before he can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay.
In Take Me With You, Steven Rowley brings his resonant wit and emotional insight to an epic love story – an exploration of the forces that draw two people into the same orbit and the gravity that threatens to pull them apart.
“Only national treasure Steven Rowley could blur the otherworldly with the everyday and turn all of it into heartache-flavored comedy. Perhaps it takes an alien abduction for us to grasp the fragile beauty and precious absurdity of a long marriage. And maybe we need space to remind us what it feels like to come home.”
“A tender and thoughtful story about the bonds of romance and family, about the inevitability of bereavement and grief, about the strangeness and beauty of being alive. And of course Take Me With You is funny; it’s a book by Steven Rowley.”
“Beautiful, bittersweet, funny and wise. Take Me with You shines a hopeful light on life and love, loss and belonging. A gem.”
“A wild premise and delightfully eccentric characters, but then suddenly—like one of those Magic Eye posters from the 90s—the whole novel resolves into a new level of focus and you are left with . . . beauty. Profundity. Grace. Rowley is a magician.”
“Steven Rowley’s Take Me with You is a cosmic romp through the mysteries and challenges of long-term marriage. A screw-ball comedy that’s ultimately about rediscovering true love.”
“Steven Rowley has crafted a gem of a story: gorgeous, wise, replete with indelible characters, and aflame with empathy and warmth.”
“[A] poignant, startling novel.”