Take Me with You

"Only national treasure Steven Rowley could blur the otherworldly with the everyday and turn all of it into heartache-flavored comedy." --Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and Wreck

We are all alien, even to the people who know us best.

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 both feeling stuck, longing for something they couldn't quite name. But was their rut so deep that Norman's 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.

In Take Me With You, Steven Rowley brings his resonant wit and emotional insight to an epic love story--an exploration of the forces that draw two people into the same orbit and the gravity that threatens to pull them apart.

Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 05/19/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780593851494


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 05/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2026
Publishers Weekly 05/18/2026

About the Author
Steven Rowley is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Lily and the Octopus, a Washington Post Notable Book; The Editor, an NPR Best Book of the Year; The Guncle, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor; and The Celebrants, a Today Show Read with Jenna book club pick. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages. He resides in Palm Springs, California.