You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol

You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol
Louisa Young

‘Extraordinarily powerful’ Emma ThompsonThere are a million love stories, and a million stories of addiction. This one is transcendent.Louisa Young met Robert Lockhart when they were both 17. Their stop-start romance lasted decades, in which time he became a celebrated composer and she, an acclaimed novelist.This is both a compelling portrait of a lifelong love affair, and an incredibly affecting guide to how the partner of a 'charismatic, infuriating, adorable, self-sabotaging’ alcoholic can find the strength to survive when the disease rips both their lives apart.

Copyright (#u05f332be-c8f9-5f23-9f9b-f5e935b2af0f)

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Louisa Young 2018

Cover photographs © Margie Hurwich/Arcangel Images, © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Louisa Young asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics and details have been changed.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008265175

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008265199

Version: 2018-07-18

Dedication (#u05f332be-c8f9-5f23-9f9b-f5e935b2af0f)

For everyone who has found themselves here

Epigraph (#u05f332be-c8f9-5f23-9f9b-f5e935b2af0f)

Inversion of Intervals:

Major becomes Minor.

Perfect stays Perfect.

Augmented becomes Diminished.

from Robert Lockhart’s

music theory notebook

1969

Contents

Cover (#u96ca7c64-e5ce-5f1d-9025-389a02a8dfa8)

Title Page (#u109fabf2-02b8-5a19-933c-af19fe459b31)

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction: The Book You Hold in Your Hand

Part One 1959–2002

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Part Two 2003–05

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve