The Opposite of Love: A Novel

by Julie Buxbaum Narrated by Emily Janice Card

Overview

When successful twenty-nine-year-old Manhattan attorney Emily Haxby ends her happy relationship just as her boyfriend is on the verge of proposing, she can't explain to even her closest friends why she did it. Somewhere beneath her sense of fun, her bravado, and her independent exterior, Emily knows that her breakup with Andrew has less to do with him and more to do with...her.

As the holiday season looms and Emily contemplates whether she made a huge mistake, the rest of her world begins to unravel: she is assigned to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit where she must defend the very values she detests by a boss who can't keep his hands to himself; her Grandpa Jack, a charming, feisty octogenarian and the person she cares most about in the world, is losing it, while her emotionally distant father has left her to cope with this alone; and underneath it all, fading memories of her deceased mother continue to remind her that love doesn't last forever.

How this brave, original young heroine finally decides to take control of her life and face the fears that have long haunted her is the great achievement of Julie Buxbaum's marvelous first novel.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172105579
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/15/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Related Subjects

• Awards
• Fiction
• Literature
• Fiction Subjects
• Phases of Life - Fiction
• Love & Relationships - Fiction
• Women's Fiction
• Occupations - Fiction
• Literary Fiction
• 20s & 30s - Fiction
• Breaking-Up - Fiction
• FICTION->Women
• Lawyers - Fiction
• Literary Fiction - Other
• Women - For Better, For Worse
• Women - Self Realization
• 2008 Discover Great New Writers Spring Selections

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Last night, I dreamt that I chopped Andrew up into a hundred little pieces, like a Benihana chef, and ate them, one by one. He tasted like chicken. Afterward, I felt full but slightly disappointed. I had been craving steak.

I plan to forget this dream. I will block out the grainy texture of moo shu Andrew. The itch of swallowing him dry. I will erase it completely, without lingering echoes or annoying daja vu, despite the possibility that my dream led me inexorably to this moment.

Because I already know that, unlike the dream--this dead end--this one is going to stick. I am living an inevitable memory.

Today, I break up with Andrew in a restaurant that has crayons on the table and peanut shells on the floor. A drunken young woman in the midst of her bachelorette party, wearing little more than a cowboy hat and tassels, attempts to organize a line dance. I realize now that I should have waited for a better backdrop. It looks as if I think our relationship adds up to nothing more than a couple of beers and some satisfying, but fiery, buffalo wings. This is not the effect I was going for.

I had imagined that disentangling would be straightforward and civilized, maybe even a tiny bit romantic. The fantasy breakup in my head played out in pantomime; no explanations, only rueful smiles, a kiss good-bye on the cheek, a farewell wave thrown over a shoulder. The sting of nostalgia and the high of release, a combustible package, maybe, but one we would both understand and appreciate.

Instead, Andrew looks at me strangely, as if I am a foreigner he has just met and he can't place my accent. I refuse to meet his eyes. I quell the overwhelming desire to run outside into the swill of Third Avenue, to drown in the overflow of people spilling out from the bars and onto the street.

Surely, that would be better than feeling Andrew's confusion reverberate off his skin like a bad odor. I lock my legs around the bottom of my bar stool and stare at the bit of barbecue sauce that clings to his upper lip. This helps assuage my guilt. How could I be serious about a man who walks around with food on his face? In all fairness, Andrew is not walking around anywhere. He perches there, stunned.

And I, too, am adorned in condiments. The ketchup on my white tank top makes it look like my heart is leaking.

"This was never going to be a forever, happily-ever-after sort of thing. You knew that," I say, though it is clear from his silence and from the last few days that he did not. I wonder if he wants to hit me. I almost wish he would.

Seems strange now that I didn't realize this moment was coming, that I hadn't started practicing in my head before yesterday. I'm usually good at endings--pride myself on them, in fact--and I always find people disingenuous when they claim that a breakup came out of nowhere. Nothing comes out of nowhere, except for, perhaps, freak accidents. Or cancer. And even those things you should be prepared for.

I guess I could have just let the weekend unfold, followed the original plan with military precision, and woken up tomorrow with Andrew in my bed and his arm thrown across my shoulder. Later, at work, I would have been able to tell some funny Labor Day anecdote around the proverbial water cooler, the weekend always better in rose-colored instant replay. But though I firmly believe that a tree does not fall in the forest until someone later tells an amusing story about it, I realize now that there will be no tidbits to share tomorrow. At...

Videos