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  • You Left Early

  • A True Story of Love and Alcohol
  • By: Louisa Young
  • Narrated by: Louisa Young
  • Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)

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You Left Early cover art

You Left Early

By: Louisa Young
Narrated by: Louisa Young
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Publisher's Summary

This brutal, beautiful memoir from award-winning novelist Louisa Young is a heartbreaking portrayal of love, grief and the merciless grip of addiction.

Louisa first met Robert Lockhart when they were both 17. Their stop-start romance lasted decades, in which time he became a celebrated composer and she an acclaimed novelist. Always snapping at their heels was Robert’s alcoholism, a helpless, ferocious dependency that affected his personality before crippling and finally, despite five years of hard-won sobriety, killing him.

There are a million love stories and a million stories of addiction. This one is truly transcendent. It is at once a compelling portrait of a unique and charismatic man, a bittersweet reflection on an all-consuming love affair and a completely honest and incredibly affecting guide to how the partner of an alcoholic can possibly survive when the disease rips both their lives apart.

This is a hugely important book. Raw and unflinching but also uplifting and elegiac, it should be essential listening for anybody who’s ever lost someone they loved.

©2018 Louisa Young (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"Spectacular. I can’t stop thinking about it. Louisa Young is a beautiful, beautiful writer and there is great courage and love in the way she addresses her subject. It’s the portrait of a man and his times and his illness told with love but also with an unflinching honesty that feels like a great gift to the reader." (Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love)

"Oh my God, it’s so beautiful, and heartbreaking, and true." (Sam Baker, The Pool)

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