If You Left - Paperback

by Ashley Prentice Norton (Author)

A seductive novel about a privileged but damaged Manhattan wife whose main source of stability -- her marriage -- comes under threat, from forces both without and within.

For most of their marriage, Althea has fluctuated between extreme depressive and manic states -- what she calls "the Tombs" and "the Visions" -- 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 -- with no "summer girl" to care for her this time -- and become "normal."

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 Wallace-reading 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.

Back Jacket

All relationships have their ups and downs. For Althea and Oliver Willow, the ups and downs are a bit . . . extreme.

Welcome to the bipolar marriage.

For most of their union, Althea has fluctuated between depressive and manic states what she calls the Tombs and the Visions and Oliver has been the steady hand. This summer, Althea decides that she will be different. She ll bring their nine-year-old daughter, Clem, to their Easthampton home once school is out with no summer girl to care for her this time and become the loving, sexy wife Oliver wants, and the reliable, affectionate mother Clem deserves. But Oliver is distant and controlling, and Clem has learned to be self-sufficient, and getting to know her now feels like very hard work. Into this scene enters the much younger, David Foster Wallace reading house painter, who reaches something in Althea that has been long buried.

Praise for the work of Ashley Prentice Norton

Gripping, vivid, and moving. Isabel Gillies

A truly gifted new voice in fiction. Jill Kargman

Darkly funny, compulsively readable. People

ASHLEY PRENTICE NORTON is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel The Chocolate Money, and a graduate of Exeter, Georgetown, and the creative writing program at New York University. She lives in New York with her husband and three children."

Author Biography

ASHLEY PRENTICE NORTON is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel The Chocolate Money, and a graduate of Exeter, Georgetown, and the creative writing program at New York University. She lives in New York with her husband and three children.