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.
