Preview
  • You Left Early

  • A True Story of Love and Alcohol
  • By: Louisa Young
  • Narrated by: Louisa Young
  • Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

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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
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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)

What listeners say about You Left Early

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Deeply moving

I was gripped from the beginning and while I don’t understand this kind of deep love of a flawed partner, I am so grateful that I haven’t had to experience this. This book is deeply moving and I couldn’t stop listening. I feel the author was so brave to make a life outside of this person but still loving him so deeply, she kept being drawn back to him. So many feelings but most of all, a respect for the author. Thank you for this sharing.

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tragically insightful

I can't describe it as entertaining. It is a young woman's charitable recounting of a prolonged life experience excruciating to live through and horrific to imagine in the reader's mind.

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2 people found this helpful