With or Without You.

With or Without You

Lauren Sanders

Akashic Books

P.O. Box 1456, New York, NY 10009

ISBN 1888451696 $14.95 280 pp.

"Your eyes found mine and for the brief seconds we connected I felt a series of convulsions charge up my legs as if your spirit had invaded my flesh ... What happened on that set between us was too big for the rest of the world. It had to remain between us. For better or worse, till the end of time, world without end."

Summer of 1987 in New York, Lillian Ginger Speck is waiting in a prison cell for her next appeal, where she tells her story of puberty, isolation, a neglecting family, struggling with concepts of friendships, relationships, sexuality, and fitting in. She asks the reader what it truly is to be alone and misunderstood. But most of all, she tells the story of how, on one afternoon in New York, she murders her one true love; soap opera star Brooke Harrison.

Meanwhile, Brooke's mother Mildred weaves a different voice into Lillian's story, relaying a third person story all of its own about the life of her daughter. Mildred watches from the sidelines as Brooke grows up, gains popularity and stardom, struggles to advance into the film industry, and mourns as her ashes are scattered in the backyard. Through Lillian and Brooke, both sides of the narrative unfold. They're growing up before the reader's eyes, one beautiful, charming, and destined for stardom; the other homely, antisocial, and driven to obsession. Sanders employs two very distinct voices and styles of writing while she intricately winds the stories of murderer and victim together, crossing Lillian and Brooke's paths countless times with great skill.

Sanders also has a very powerful eye for imagery, drawing out small details to their fullest extent to be used later in deeper metaphors. She pulls together a net of interwoven strings of these images and metaphors, connecting them all together in their own way as they are repeated throughout the book. No detail lingers on the page without its own purpose.

But one thing should definitely be said about Sanders's method; it's very graphic. Her image of love and sex may not be the same as the reader's, but it is the one that will prevail within the novel. Because not much is left to the imagination during passionate scenes, it may be seen as offensive to the more sexually conservative individual.

Lauren Sanders stunned readers and won a Lambda Literary Award in 2001 with her strange portrayal of love and sex in her debut novel Kamikaze Lust. But With or Without You draws on a different illusion of love society has made for itself: obsession. She addresses the many obsessions of our modern age: money, love, status, fame, celebrities, beauty, crime, and even obsession itself. With two clashing plot lines detailing two very distinct lives, the reader sees the struggles of human existence differ greatly but spawn from the same pool of obsessions. Lillian's apology/love letter drives the reader's heart to ache for her but at the same time condemn her. Mildred's tale drives the reader to tears as we learn every beautiful detail about her beloved daughter, only to be swept off our feet at the end. Compelling to the very end, With or Without You pulls from a pool of every human emotion until we are left dry and tender.