Take Me With You by Steven Rowley [Book Review]

Read my review of Take Me With You by Steven Rowley, a warm, strange, and bittersweet novel about grief, marriage, loneliness, and starting over.

A husband disappearing into a mysterious beam of light in the Joshua Tree desert sounds like the setup for either a sci-fi thriller or a truly unhinged Dateline episode. But because this is Steven Rowley, Take Me With You is less about aliens and more about grief, marriage, loneliness, and the very rude business of being left behind after thirty years of loving someone. Find out why I gave the book 3.5/5 stars.

What is the book about?

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.

My thoughts:

Steven Rowley really does know how to take a deeply weird premise and somehow make it about grief, marriage, loneliness, and whether or not you should get a dog.

In Take Me With You, college professor Jesse del Ruth watches his husband of thirty years, Norman, get out of bed one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light, and disappear.

What happens next isn’t really an alien abduction thriller. It’s more about what you do when the person who was half your life is suddenly missing, and you’re left in the desert wondering if you’ve been abandoned, widowed, dumped, or just caught in a bad episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Jesse is grieving, but he’s also angry and a bit lost.

This is where Rowley shines. He writes characters who are funny because they’re sad, not because the story tries to make pain cute. Jesse’s loneliness feels real and personal, and there are great insights about relationships, identity, and the scary feeling of having to become whole again after years as part of a couple.

I also liked that the book isn’t a perfect self-help story. Jesse doesn’t suddenly thrive just because he thinks about adding a pool or calling his mom. He’s a messy character who makes some questionable choices.

That said, the plot didn’t always work for me as much as the characters did. There are conspiracy-theorist neighbors, a strange man following Jesse, family drama, suspicion around Norman’s disappearance, and a whole lot of emotional wandering. Some of it is funny and touching. Some of it meanders. The tone also wobbles a bit between tender, absurd, mysterious, and sentimental, and I didn’t always feel like the book fully knew which lane it wanted to be in.

But I liked Jesse. I liked the heart of the story. I also liked how Rowley used the beam-of-light event to ask the quieter question: Who are you when the person you built your life around goes away?

Take Me With You didn’t completely blow me away, but it did move me. It’s warm, strange, funny, and emotionally generous, even if the story sometimes wandered a bit too much.

Sample the audiobook – narrated by the always-delightful Michael Urie (Shrinking, Ugly Betty):

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for an advanced reader’s copy; all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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