You Should Have Left

Praise

“Mind-bending. . . . Part horror, part science fiction.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A book that should carry a health warning: read alone at your own risk.” —Monocle
 
“Riveting.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Clever, exquisitely terrifying. . . . [Kehlmann] makes entertainment out of metaphysics.” —Harper’s Magazine
 
“A masterclass in economical storytelling, meticulously attentive prose and imaginative agility. Kehlmann creates narrative complexity with the deftest of strokes.” —The Literary Review

“[A] master novelist. . . . [Kehlmann] has a rare ability to make complex ideas the stuff of warm, light fiction.” —The Times Literary Supplement
 
“A beautifully crafted exercise in terror. . . . [Kehlmann] creates a sense of existential dread that transcends the typical ghost story. . . . A book to keep you up at night.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“[Kehlmann] is in total control. . . . He and his translator Ross Benjamin squeeze an enormous amount of readerly anxiety out of very few carefully placed words. . . . This is a story about a marriage in trouble, and about a seemingly impossible desire to protect a young child from threatening reality, but also about something else, something unavoidable and powerful but terrifyingly vague. . . . This little book . . . has a funny way with dimensions—its effects are amplified, and they linger.” —The Spectator
 
“A masterful experiment about the limits of literary realism.” —The Brooklyn Rail
 
“Wry, eerie and increasingly terrifying. . . . Kehlmann is a formidable observer with a flair for articulating dysfunctional behaviour. . . . An entertaining Everyman’s postmodernist Gothic guaranteed to unsettle.” —The Irish Times
 
“A quick, fun, breathless read. It’s inventive and scary—and a delightful take on the writing life.” —The Huffington Post
 
“Chilling. . . . Kehlmann makes deft use of horror staples and offers commentary on the distinction between art and life.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“A taut and scary novella.” —The Sunday Times (London)