A breathless, propulsive look into the caustic sides of love, from the beloved Norwegian winner of the PEN translation prize and National Book Award Finalist 'What is so impressive is rstavik's ability to capture -- with precision, candor and, indeed, tenacity -- her shifting sense of self, as the foundations on which it rests crumble with every passing moment.' -- Toby Lichtig, The Wall Street Journal Fear is a second skin for the unnamed narrator of Hanne rstavik's Stay With Me. A successful writer at 53, her father may be a frail twig, but the fear from her past, and of her father's rage, still envelopes her. In urgent prose, the contours of her life emerge: a 12-year marriage, the death of her lover L, her troubled relationship with M -- 15 years her junior and vexed with an all-too-familiar rage. We waver between our narrator's life and the life of Judith, the protagonist of her nascent novel. Judith is a Norwegian costume designer who falls in love with Myrto, a conductor in an
