Introduction

From New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt comes a page-turner that asks the question, What do we owe the other people in our lives, and when does the cost become too great?

Stella is a nurse who has long suppressed her own needs and desires to nurture the dreams of her partner, Simon, the bass player for a rock band that has started to lose its edge. But when Stella gets unexpectedly ill and falls into a coma, Simon must learn the meaning of sacrifice, while Stella’s best friend, Libby, a doctor who treats Stella, must also make a difficult choice as the coma wears on.

When Stella at last awakes from her two-month sleep, she emerges into a striking new reality where not only her whole identity, but also her role in her relationships, has been scrambled, and she has the chance to form a new life, one she hadn’t even realized she wanted.

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Excerpt

Stella maps out time by noise, music, scent, and heat. The morning sun on her body, the coolness of night, sometimes the rough wash of a cloth over her body. Everything looks and feels different now. Sounds are sharper. She sees colors behind her lids, but when she tries to focus, tastes flood her mouth. Apples. Roast beef. Once, strawberry ice cream, just out of nowhere, like a kind of wonderful surprise. Her senses are all mixed up and she keeps thinking, More. Please, more, more, more. The surprise of it makes her feel more alive. It’s something new, something positive, so surely it means things are changing. Someone touches her hand and she sees a flash of turquoise. Someone says something and she smells oranges, making her mouth water. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Caroline Leavitt’s novel is really about how no one and nothing stays the same, and that these changes can happen in a heartbeat. Even if Stella had not fallen into coma, she would have changed. Even if Simon had not had to give up his gig, things would have changed. Since changes in relationships are almost inevitable, how do you think the dynamics between Stella and Simon would have altered even if she had not ended up in coma and emerged as a different person? Do you think the relationship would have endured? Why or why not?

2. Leavitt, who was once in a coma, did a great deal of research on personality change of people after coma. She learned that, like her, many coma survivors do not suffer brain damage or a regular personality change, but in some cases, brains really do rewire and people come out of coma with incredible new talents. Some survivors can speak fluent languages they never knew before; some can paint or are violinist virtuosos. Others, like Stella, come out of coma with not only an altered personality but also with a remarkable new talent and an ability to draw on heretofore unknown inner strength. How does knowing this science change your own views about the human brain and how much of it we don’t really understand? How does this scientific knowledge affect what you think of as your own limitations?

3. The idea of home plays a big part in With or Without You. Simon hates his parents’ Woodstock summer home because it was the scene of his humiliation and failure as a kid trying to be a musician, but to his dismay, Stella loves it. Do you think that place really matters, that a home can really have energy and personality, or do you think a house is just a house and what we make of it?

4. Leavitt has always said she likes novels that have “never-ending stories”—where the novel ends but you still have questions about what is going to happen to the characters. Those unfinished endings involve Stella, Simon, and Libby. What do you personally imagine might happen to each of them? What do you hope will happen?

5. There are two sections of the novel in which we hear from Stella while she is in coma. Obviously, Leavitt is drawing on personal experience and attempting to give the reader a sense of what that experience was like. Do you find these trips into the mind of a coma victim to be realistic? Do you feel that they give the novel—and Stella as a character—greater depth? Why or why not?

6. For Simon, success as a musician and recognition of his ability seems to be a major driving force, while Stella seems to have no interests beyond her work, the possibility of having a child, and stability in her relationship. Why do you think the relationship has lasted as long as it has? Is it a case of “opposites attract,” or do you think it was doomed? Why?

7. For Leavitt, the past is often the prologue, containing wounds that have to be healed for people to become whole. Libby blames herself for someone’s death; Simon struggles under his father’s disapproval; Stella feels her parents loved each other more than they ever loved her. How do you think these “wounds” influence their actions, both with each other as well as in the directions their lives have taken?

8. A great deal of With or Without You is about what we are willing to do for the ones we love, and the ones who love us—and what the cost might be. Would there ever be a limit for you, when giving becomes too much?

9. Leavitt ends the book with these sentences: Listen. Any moment something amazing can happen. Some readers might find this strange, considering the catastrophes that occur in the book. What do you think Leavitt is really trying to say about life in the light of tragedy?

10. How do you feel about the decisions Stella made at the end of the story? Do you think she used the young writer, or was it a matter of their using each other? Likewise, did she use Simon? How does the answer you feel strongest about affect how you feel about Stella as a character?

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