I Could Live Here Forever: A Novel - Hardcover

Halperin, Hanna

 
9780593492079: I Could Live Here Forever: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593492072 ISBN 13: 9780593492079
Verlag: Viking, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK

“Halperin’s radiant second novel walks the fine line between the longing for couplehood and the torture of codependency. . . . Let the rapturous intimacy and gut-churning ups and downs begin!” —Leigh Haber, The New York Times Book Review

“I read this book in three days and canceled plans to finish it. It is heart-wrenching and relatable in so many ways.” —Emma Roberts

By the award-winning author of Something Wild, a gripping portrait of a tumultuous, consuming relationship between a young woman and a recovering addict

When Leah Kempler meets Charlie Nelson in line at the grocery store, their attraction is immediate and intense. Charlie, with his big feelings and grand proclamations of love, captivates her completely. But there are peculiarities of his life—he’s older than her but lives with his parents; he meets up with a friend at odd hours of the night; he sleeps a lot and always seems to be coming down with something. He confesses that he’s a recovering heroin addict, but he promises Leah that he’s never going to use again.

Leah's friends and family are concerned. As she finds herself getting deeper into an isolated relationship, one of manipulation and denial, the truth about Charlie feels as blurry as their time together. Even when Charlie’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, when he starts to make Leah feel unsafe, she can’t help but feel that what exists between them is destined. Charlie is wide open, boyish, and unbearably handsome. The bounds of Leah’s own pain—and love—are so deep that she can’t see him spiraling into self-destruction.

Hanna Halperin writes with aching vulnerability and intimacy, sharply attuned to Leah’s desire for an all-consuming, compulsive connection. I Could Live Here Forever exposes the chasm between perception and truth to tell an intoxicating story of one woman’s relationship with an addict, the accompanying swirl of compassion and codependence, and her enduring search for love and wholeness.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Hanna Halperin is the author of Something Wild, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was longlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her stories have been published in The Kenyon Review, n+1, New Ohio Review, and Joyland. She has taught fiction workshops at GrubStreet in Boston and worked as a domestic violence counselor.

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1

Charlie was soft-spoken, but when he sang, he could transform his voice to sound like anyone—Tom Waits, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie. The first time I heard him sing, I couldn’t believe that something so loud and powerful was coming from him. We met in Madison, Wisconsin, while I was getting my MFA in fiction writing. I was twenty-five years old. Charlie was thirty-one. He had studied creative writing, too, as an undergrad, but when I met him he was working in construction. He was tall and boyish-looking. He had the most beautiful face I’d ever seen.

We met waiting on the same checkout line at the grocery store. I noticed him before he noticed me. As soon as we looked at each other, it seemed obvious what was going to happen. First he complimented my cereal choice—Raisin Bran—and then he asked if I’d ever tried Raisin Bran Crunch. I shook my head no. I could feel how insanely I was blushing, and I was mortified at how easily I gave myself away.

He smiled a little and held up the purple-and-blue box in his basket.

I pretended not to notice the way the woman behind the register was smirking at us, like she was watching the opening scene of a romantic comedy. I agreed to meet him the next night. Our first date was in mid-October at a pub called the Weary Traveler.

I got there first. The pub was warm and dimly lit, and pretty full for a Thursday night. It was all dark wood inside, except for the tin ceiling, copper and embossed. The walls were covered with weird art, simple paintings of random people, and there were built-in shelves lined with old books and board games.

The waitress sat me at a table facing the door. When he walked in, he was wearing a T-shirt and no coat even though it was freezing outside. His hands were stuffed inside his pockets, his shoulders hunched, like he was cold. When he spotted me, he looked surprised to see me sitting there waiting for him. He raised his eyebrows and lifted one hand from his pocket to wave.
I got shy when I saw him. He was so much better-looking than me. It seemed uneven. I was wearing jeans and my favorite black sweater, my hair down.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sliding into the seat across from me. “I see you got started.” He nodded to my rum and Coke.

“I hope that’s okay.” I’d already drunk half of it.

“Of course. I should have texted saying I was running behind. I ended up cooking dinner for my mom, and the traffic coming from the other side of town was worse than I expected.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said. “That you cooked dinner for your mom.”

“I like to do it when I have the time. Do you cook?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t really start till a few years ago. Nothing too fancy. I make a pretty decent quesadilla.”
He smiled then, and his whole face opened up—bright and sweet. His smile made him look like a kid.

I don’t remember much of what we talked about that night, except that he made me laugh a lot, and I could tell he was observant.

He spent a long time picking out a certain IPA on the menu but once it arrived he barely touched it. I worried this meant he wasn’t having a good time, but he didn’t seem in a rush, and he wasn’t doing the thing that some people did—glancing around to see who else might walk in. He didn’t pull out his phone once.

At some point during the evening he told me that his father had left his mother before he was born, but when Charlie was a teenager, he’d looked his father up on the internet and confronted him at his place of work—a pharmacy in Janesville, Wisconsin. When his father realized who Charlie was, Charlie leaned over the pharmacy counter and said, “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m not here to kill you.” Then he’d clapped his father on the shoulder and walked out. He reached over and clapped my shoulder, to show me how he’d done it. It was the first time he touched me. I could
feel where his hand had just been, reverberating on my shoulder, even after he’d pulled it away.

“Wow,” I said. “What was it like to see him?”

“One of his ears was really fucked up. It was kind of shriveled and pinched and there was this piece of dead skin growing out of it. I might have stayed longer but I couldn’t stand looking at his ear. Do you think that’s weird?” he asked me. “That what I remember most is his ear?”

“I don’t think it’s weird,” I said. “I feel like it’s usually those small things that you’re not expecting that hit you the hardest.”

He nodded vehemently. “That’s exactly it. The details.”

Then I told him that I hadn’t seen my mom since I was thirteen.

He sat back in his seat and looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “Is that why you write?”

It was startling, to be looked at like that. I felt like I could tell him anything, but I held back. I was already scared that I might never see him again. Nobody had ever asked me that question.
I shrugged. “I’m sure it has something to do with it.”

He didn’t try to kiss me at the end of the night, and at the time I took that to mean he didn’t like me. But he called me the next day. When I saw his name on my phone, I panicked and almost didn’t answer. I figured it must be an accident.

“I know I’m supposed to make you wait three days,” he said when I picked up, and the softness of his voice, his slightly monotone rasp, was so sexy to me that I could feel my whole body warm, as if a switch had been turned on. “So that you’ll think I’m busy,” he continued, “and maybe not that into you. But I’m more straightforward than that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks.”

“Are you free tonight?”

I told him I was busy—which was a lie—but free the night after.

“Great,” he said. “So what do you have going on? Another date?”

“No. I’m hanging out with my friends.”

“Must be nice, having friends to hang out with.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking, but I laughed.

“On Saturday can I pick you up at eight?”

“Sure,” I said.

I was confused. I didn’t know things could be so easy. I didn’t know why he liked me. I also couldn’t fathom why he thought I had dates lined up. I hung up the phone and masturbated.

...

When he called back, not even an hour later, I was still lying on my bed thinking about him.

“Hi,” I said.

“I started to write you a text but it was getting really long, so I thought it would be better to call.”

I grew tense. “Okay.”

“I was wondering if you’d be up for hanging out at my place tomorrow.” He paused. “I know it’s a weird thing to ask since we just met, and I didn’t want you to think I was creepily trying to lure you over or anything. The thing is, I’m a little tight on money at the moment and I don’t love spending ten dollars on a beer at a bar when it’s pretty much the same amount to have a six-pack at home, you know? But, all of that to say, if you don’t feel comfortable, I totally understand, given that we’ve only known each other for, like, twenty-four hours.”

I sat up in bed. “Right. That’s fine. I feel comfortable.”

“How about I give you my address? So you can...

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Verlag
Viking
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593492072
ISBN 13 
9780593492079
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH
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Bayern
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Deutschland

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