The smell of exhaust fumes.
The click of a door shutting, the surge of an engine. That’s what you get when you narrowly miss the bus, miss your flight, miss your ride – add the outrage, the I-can’t-believe-it feeling and you want to scream. Yup, as in the new novel, “Take Me With You” by Steven Rowley, being left behind is frustrating.
They hadn’t been getting along very well.
Wasn’t that how it was with all long-time couples? Jesse del Ruth thought maybe so. He and his husband, Norman, sniped at one another a lot lately, though lovingly. But was that disconnect, the growing-apart enough for Norman to leave? And in the way that he did?
Just like that, one night after a meaningless little spat, Norman walked out on the patio of their Joshua Tree home, held up his phone to the night skies, then he walked toward the blinding light that came from somewhere out there, and he was gone.
Jesse’s boss at the college thought it was funny when he told her; the man teaching a class about humor was making a joke. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t even an abduction; it seemed maybe that Norman had gone voluntarily.
And so Jesse had to figure out life without Norman. He got the dog he always wanted, and he dug a hole in his back yard, hoping to learn something, anything. When Lally, Norman’s sister showed up, asking for Norman to sign legal papers to start a family process that had been put off for too long, Jesse couldn’t tell her the truth. He said that Norman was in Minneapolis or Milwaukee or somewhere.
It was Lally who hired a private detective to find Norman, who had no luck in the search.
So where was Norman? Jesse started divorce proceedings, a first step for moving on. Lally mourned her brother, and things that would never happen. Then again, Earth was a terrible place lately and maybe Norman was right. Maybe any other place was better.
Sigh. You truly want “Take Me With You” to be great, don’t you? But it’s just… weird. It asks you to suspend belief on several fronts, that Norman actually calls in the aliens, that Jesse basically freezes over it, and how the ending of this story even begins. Is this book more for firm, heavy-duty believers of UFOlogy? It feels like it might be.
Furthermore, it’s hard to like Norman and Jesse because they don’t seem to like one another very much, which makes Norman’s absence seem almost like a big yay (even to Jesse). His disappearance actually makes Jesse more palatable, which is… weird. Lally is the most likable person in this book but her why is, well, yeah, you guessed it.
Fans of author Steven Rowley’s other books may be disappointed with this plot. The book contains Rowley’s sweetly-gentle sense of humor and his wonderful scene-setting, but those benefits might not be enough. Sadly, it may seem to some readers that “Take Me With You” missed the bus.
“Take Me With You” by Steven Rowley. c.2026, Putnam, $30. 353 pages
This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.
