San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A middleaged comingofage.
Stella and Simon are in their early 40s and having an argument about what to do with the remains of their youth. Stella is thinking it might be time to settle down, maybe have some kids. Simon, a famehungry musician, feels he’s right on the brink of the big time that has always remained just out of his reach. Privately, they both suspect their long relationship might be winding down. In an effort to get some spark back, they decide, after their second or third bottle of red wine, to pop the mystery pills Simon finds in his pocket, a gift from his bandmate.
It’ll be fun, like old times, they think. But the night does not go as planned, and Simon wakes up in the morning to find Stella in a druginduced coma. Thus begins “With or Without You,” the new novel by Caroline Leavitt.
“With or Without You” is set in Manhattan and peopled with the type of professionalclass white characters who strive for fulfillment, even though their lives are already pretty great. They have relationships, good careers (even without fame) and apartments in Chelsea that they love. It’s not a particularly ambitious novel, either stylistically or thematically, but its pace and plot make for a brisk and compelling read.
Some of the best writing in a book peppered with some sloppy prose — the doorman is “all spitshine and braided epaulettes”; an apartment is “all glass windows and burnished wood floor”; a diner is “all chrome and blackandwhite tile” — is written from the comatose Stella’s point of view. Her dreamy, frustrated monologues are so particular and evocative that the reader can’t help but feel some of the character’s confusion and fear.
As Stella’s coma continues, Simon must choose between staying by her side and pursuing his big break with the rest of his band. This is a novel about middleaged people finally growing up, shedding some of their baggage and becoming better people, so Simon makes the right decision and stays by her side.
Stella is in the hospital where she worked as a nurse precoma, and it’s there, by her bedside, that Simon meets and gets to know Libby, a doctor who happens to be Stella’s best friend. It’s strange that a livein partner of nearly two decades wouldn’t know his girlfriend’s best friend, but it seems that Libby so detested Simon based on Stella’s stories about him that she avoided him at all costs. Now the three of them are bound, and it’s at this point that Libby becomes the third narrative wheel of the novel, earning her own pointofview chapters.
Because we see and hear the story through the voices of three different characters, it’s sometimes hard to know whose story this is. Who, exactly, do we really care about? Whose childhood trauma was the worst (Libby’s!)? Who do we hope will transform for the better?
As it turns out, all of them emerge as the better angels of their natures. Their middleaged awakenings are filled with some lessthanenlightening discoveries. “Life, Simon thought, was short and mysterious,” but “With or Without You” is ultimately about how we turn catastrophe and regret into something transformative, and we can’t help rooting for these characters to finally find the fulfillment that so eludes them.