From "the most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx" (Vogue), the furious, hilarious, soul-rending story of one woman's reckoning with marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband, Theo, and their young daughter, Claire, a writer, gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump-and a creeping case of postpartum depression. But what begins as a temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends soon mutates into an extended flight from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the depths of the past. Deep in the Mojave desert where she grew up, Claire meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose death still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark dims with every passing year until all that remains is a smoldering addiction. Claire can't go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, she finally finds a way to make herself at home in the world.Bold, tender, and often darkly hilarious, I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness reaffirms the "brutal kind of beauty" (Los Angeles Times) and "mercilessly sharp" vision (NPR) that established Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.Story Locale: American Southwest

FEARLESS, TRANSGRESSIVE TAKE ON FEMALE IDENTITY: Watkins's protagonist is a woman beyond worrying about convention and unable to defy her desires, offering a contemporary take on the long literary tradition of women for whom there must be something more.AWARD-WINNING RIVERHEAD AUTHOR: Watkins swept up a bounty of major prizes with her first book, Battleborn: the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, a Young Lions Fiction Award, a NBA 5 Under 35 designation, a Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a Guggenheim, to name but a few. This no-holds-barred novel fulfills the promise that inspired the accolades.FASCINATING BACKSTORY: This is highly autobiographical fiction. Watkins mines her own messy past - her father's role in the Manson family, her mother's descent into depression and addiction; her own strange upbringing and more recent struggles with postpartum depression and the tension between motherhood and art - and finds literary gold.