A poignant, hilarious, and wholly original love story, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband Norman get out of bed late 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, both feeling stuck. 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 strange man 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.

I received an advance copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

I’ve enjoyed every Steven Rowley book I’ve picked up. The Guncle series absolutely warmed my heart, and The Celebrants really touched me. (That one is probably my favorite of his so far.) So when Take Me With You was announced, I was excited to read it. I ended up enjoying it, but not as much as his others. The frustrating part is I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Let me say this up front. I didn’t dislike this book. I had a good time with it, and there’s a lot here to love. But something was missing for me, and I’ve been turning it over in my head since I finished.

Here’s the gist. Jesse and Norman have been married for thirty years. They live out in Joshua Tree and one night Jesse watches his husband climb out of bed, wander into the backyard, walk straight into a weird shaft of light, and vanish. No warning, no note, nothing to hold onto. All of a sudden Jesse is alone in a way he hasn’t been since he was young, trying to figure out what to do with a future he never planned for and a present that doesn’t make any sense. Then Lally, Norman’s sister, shows up at the door with a request she really needs him to say yes to. There’s also a neighbor who’s gone deep down a rabbit hole of theories, a stranger who keeps showing up, and a growing pile of people who wonder if maybe Jesse himself had something to do with Norman vanishing.

What I really loved was the theme of hitting a crossroads in life. All of us hit these eventually. Sometimes we walk into them on purpose. Sometimes life shoves us into them whether we like it or not. Jesse’s whole world has rearranged itself overnight, and he has to decide what kind of person he is when the other half of his life is missing. Does he go back to teaching? Get a dog? Wait around for a man who may never come home? Rowley sits with those questions in a way that felt really honest, and that’s the part of the book that hit me the hardest.

This is really Jesse’s story, and that mostly worked for me. Watching him try to function while also wondering if he should be allowed to function is interesting. There’s a slow grief in him that the book handles well, and the moments where it tips into dark humor held some of my favorite scenes.

Lally was a fun addition. Her chapters bring a different energy and break up Jesse’s spiraling. I appreciated having her perspective in the mix. But here’s where I started running into the missing piece. The book, in my opinion, would have been stronger with more of Norman. The little we get from him isn’t enough. I wanted to hear his side. I wanted to understand him as a full person and not just an absence everyone else is orbiting around. Without spoiling anything, that gap is part of what kept the book from fully landing for me.

That’s also why this is such a hard one to review. A lot of my bigger questions and the parts I think were underdeveloped slide right into spoiler territory, so I’m going to leave them vague and trust you’ll see what I mean when you read it.

I did a full immersion read with audio and the physical book. Michael Urie narrates, and he was fantastic. I’m already a big fan of his, and he handled this story really well.

If you’re already a Rowley fan, you should absolutely read this one. The premise leans more speculative than his other books, but his signature wit is all over it, and the characters are easy to fall into. I liked it, I just didn’t love it the way I’ve loved his others. And I think that’s OK. Not every book has to be a top-of-the-year favorite for me to recommend it.