Review: “I Could Live Here Forever” brings readers deep into the world of addicts and those who love them
In this post-#MeToo era, it’s a particularly poignant meme. These are modern women unlikely to let a boss underpay them or an unsolicited flirt pester them. Yet they surrender to lovers who lie, cheat, steal, humiliate and otherwise demean them. Why is this contemporary version of the 1950s “bad boy” still so seductive to feminists who otherwise own their lives?,” is to inhabit this poisoned world.
“He’s smart and funny,” Leah describes her boyfriend to her family over Thanksgiving dinner. “Really nice. Also, he’s a recovering heroin addict. He’s been sober for three years.”Months later, during a second family vacation, Leah leads her siblings to believe that she and Charlie have broken up. She changes his name to “Cynthia” in her phone, so they don’t know who’s endlessly love-bombing her.
Basking in Charlie’s “love,” blinded to the red flags flashing and snapping in the wind, Leah takes a call from Charlie’s mom, Faye, with whom Leah has built a relationship straight out of a codependence textbook. “We think he’s relapsed,” Faye tells Leah. “He’s not answering our calls. Has he been talking to you?”As devoted codependents often do, Leah marshals most of her energy to help “her” addict stay in denial, then scrapes the bottom of her energetic barrel to keep her own self alive.
While doing all of this, Leah becomes an expert witness to her boyfriend’s condition. “I googled heroin addiction so often that ads for addiction treatment centers were constantly popping up in my sidebars. I read ‘Junkie’ by William S. Burroughs and ‘Jesus’ Son’ by Denis Johnson. As I watched a 1970s Al Pacino nodding out, I realized how many times I’d watched Charlie nod out. I watched that movie a lot that spring. It soothed me. This was a love story that had been told before.
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