The Life Between Staying and LeavingLove, Sex, Money and the Mess of Being Together
They love each other. Then the owner of the house they rent in Tbilisi offers to sell it to them. They have a few months to decide. A conversation about buying a house very quickly stops being about the house.
Who pays, who decides, who gives in
Two adults can love each other and still have very different ideas about what they owe each other. Who pays, who decides, who gives in, whose contribution counts as enough, and why things that seemed unimportant for years suddenly matter once there is an actual price attached to them.
Anna is a lawyer, and she's used to making sense of other people's conflicts. She listens, compares facts, notices contradictions and separates what actually matters from whatever people happen to be arguing about most loudly. It works rather less well with her own life. Yesterday the house was simply where they lived. Now it has her counting money, revisiting old decisions and imagining not the next month, but the next several years.
Anna is a lawyer, and she's used to making sense of other people's conflicts. She listens, compares facts, notices contradictions and separates what actually matters from whatever people happen to be arguing about most loudly. It works rather less well with her own life. Yesterday the house was simply where they lived. Now it has her counting money, revisiting old decisions and imagining not the next month, but the next several years.
“Loving someone and wanting to keep living exactly this life with him turned out not to be quite the same question.”
There's very little perfection here. But a great deal you'll recognise.
Anna and Max met as adults, when they both already had a history of their own. For almost a year, their relationship fitted inside a phone: messages, calls, video chats and endless conversations about all the things people hope they've discussed before they start living together. They knew each other's biographies before they knew each other's habits, and they were sure they knew each other very well.
Now they rent a house in Tbilisi, live with Anna's nearly grown-up son and two dogs, and have the sort of ordinary family life that's surprisingly difficult to explain in one sentence. Max cooks, does the shopping, drives Anna's son to school, looks after the car and the dogs and deals with another dozen things that somebody has to do every day. He can still make Anna laugh at exactly the moment when she's firmly decided to be angry with him. It would be much easier if all the good things simply disappeared one day and left only the bad ones behind. At least then it would be obvious what to do. Life is rarely that considerate.
Now they rent a house in Tbilisi, live with Anna's nearly grown-up son and two dogs, and have the sort of ordinary family life that's surprisingly difficult to explain in one sentence. Max cooks, does the shopping, drives Anna's son to school, looks after the car and the dogs and deals with another dozen things that somebody has to do every day. He can still make Anna laugh at exactly the moment when she's firmly decided to be angry with him. It would be much easier if all the good things simply disappeared one day and left only the bad ones behind. At least then it would be obvious what to do. Life is rarely that considerate.
Between Us
Each chapter ends after the conversation itself is already over. Max has gone off to do something else, the dogs have settled down, the house is quiet again, and Anna is still carrying on the conversation in her head, because sometimes it's only afterwards that you realise you were never really arguing about tomatoes, a purchase or even money.
Sometimes she works something out. Sometimes she doesn't.
There are no ready-made answers here.
Sometimes she works something out. Sometimes she doesn't.
There are no ready-made answers here.
Who This Book Is For
If you've ever wondered whether to stay or leave, but didn't ask yourself that question out loud until you actually needed an answer. If you've ever argued about something that wasn't really what the argument was about, tried to explain your relationship to a friend and realised halfway through that every short version of the story lies a little. If you've ever said it wasn't about money at all, even though somehow the conversation ended up being about money again. If you've ever loved someone, missed them, waited for them to come home and then been just as pleased when they finally went into another room and left you alone.
Then some of Anna and Max's conversations may feel suspiciously familiar.
Then some of Anna and Max's conversations may feel suspiciously familiar.
Start reading
Meet Anna and Max while their life is still moving along in its usual way. Max is making breakfast, Anna's son is getting ready for school, two dogs are keeping a close eye on everything happening in the house, and Anna has no idea yet that the landlord's offer to sell them the house will make her look very differently at things she'd previously been able to leave alone.
The first three chapters are available in full, with no registration required.
The first three chapters are available in full, with no registration required.
About the AuthorOlga Sverchkova
I've been practising law in St Petersburg for more than twenty years, and I began writing books in 2019. Over those years, I saw many people arrive with one conflict only for a long conversation to reveal that they were actually arguing about something else entirely. That's probably why I'm most interested in the part of a story where there isn't a final answer yet, when someone doesn't quite understand what's happening to them or what they're going to do next.
Anna is a lawyer too. But The Life Between Staying and Leaving is a novel, not the story of my family.
I now live in Tbilisi and write books about people, cities and ordinary life, which rarely turns out to be quite as ordinary as it first appears.
Anna is a lawyer too. But The Life Between Staying and Leaving is a novel, not the story of my family.
I now live in Tbilisi and write books about people, cities and ordinary life, which rarely turns out to be quite as ordinary as it first appears.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Life Between Staying and Leaving based on a true story?
No. The Life Between Staying and Leaving is a work of fiction. Anna and Max are fictional characters, and their story isn't the story of my family. I did spend more than twenty years practising law, as Anna does, but that doesn't make the novel my biography in disguise.
What is The Life Between Staying and Leaving about?
Anna and Max love each other and have lived together for years. When the owner of the house they rent offers to sell it to them, an ordinary conversation about the price makes Anna think about things it had been much easier not to think about. Does she want to buy this house, tie the next several years of her life to it and, more importantly, does she want to spend those years with Max?
Where can I read the first chapters?
The first three chapters are available to read free on the website, in full and without registration.
Is the novel available in Russian?
Yes. The Russian version is titled «Отношения без глянца». The first three chapters are also available in Russian.
Contact the Author
Questions about the book, reviews, interviews, or collaborations? You can reach me directly.