What You Have Left: A Novel

In 1976, on the day of his wife's funeral, Wylie Greer drops off his five-year-old daughter, Holly, at his father-in-law's dairy farm on the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina. Wylie tells her he just needs a little time to clear his head, but thirty years pass before Holly sees her father again -- "time I spent wondering what I'd done to make him leave," she says, "and what I could do to make him come back."

What You Have Left is about a father and daughter trying to make their way back to one another across decades of uncertainty and ambivalence -- all the while hoping to discover that what they have left is worth salvaging. It's also the story of a grandfather bent on suicide, a pioneering female NASCAR driver, a heartbroken amnesiac, a video poker junkie, and assorted other liars, cheaters, and lovers who, despite their best intentions, never quite live up to their own expectations.

Are we doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes? Can lies save love instead of destroying it? Is letting go the same as giving up? Shot through with sly humor and a knowing sympathy for human weakness, What You Have Left takes up these and other questions as it examines the weight of history, the nature of loss, and the possibility of forgiveness. Making use of bold shifts in viewpoint and time, Allison proves a brilliant observer of the emotional legacies handed down from parent to child and the ways loss defines us. This stunning debut brims with an affection for humanity exactly as it is -- in all its ignorance and awareness, its swagger and humility, its despair and hope.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Fresh, engaging book--would make a great movie!, 2007-12-12
What a find! This book has beautifully drawn, believable characters, gripping plotlines, and clean, elegant prose. And it begs to be a movie--great female characters, the whole story about Maddy as a woman driver in the early days of NASCAR, Holly's relationship with her grandfather, etc.


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Incredibly satisfying read, 2007-12-02
Allison's writing is so clean, precise and unobtrusive that I nearly had the first chapter read before leaving the bookstore. I most enjoyed the shifting perspectives from one family member to another as the story unfolded among multiple family members.


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

What are they up to now?, 2007-08-17
This novel will leave you thinking, as it does what good writing should: its characters seem even more real than the folks next door. Allison tells his story--and it's a good story--through multiple viewpoints and styles. This might muddle things in less capable hands, but in Allison's it only deepens the experience. His writing stays clear throughout, almost breathable. It made the getting to know his people all that much easier and enjoyable.

Novels that stick with me produce one commmon effect: I recognize I've reached the end of the story (because of that feeling that this particular ending is the only way it could end), but nonetheless want to know what happened to the characters afterwards. I've been thoroughly involved in what's happening to them, a top-shelf experience to have as a reader.




2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Pitch Perfect, 2007-07-25
What You Have Left is like a perfect pop song. The kind that you crank up on a bright summer day as you roll down the windows, step on the gas, and see what that baby can do. Like those summertime songs, this book is infectious, with no fatty in the patty.

The characters are vividly drawn, but the prose is so smooth as to be invisible. It's like I didn't read the story at all; I mainlined it. But don't confuse "pop" with "simple." This book is smart. Complex as the human heart. And that's Will Allison's best trick. Making this whole writing game seem easy as ice cream.

THE book of the summer.



2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

great new literature, 2007-07-24
Will Allison's style of writing is simple yet smart. I immediately fell for his characters and found myself engrossed in their lives, unable to put the book down until I finished it. Each chapter is strong enough to easily stand on its own as an excellent short story, but together, the chapters also embody a phenominal work which is funny, emotional, and very human.

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