I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness: A Novel

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.