You Should Have Left: A Novel

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • From the internationally bestselling author of The Director, an eerie and supernatural tale of a writer's emotional collapse

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

"This is a story about a marriage in trouble, and about a seemingly impossible desire to protect a young child . . . but also about something else, something unavoidable and powerful but terrifyingly vague.” —The Spectator

“Clever, exquisitely terrifying. . . . [Kehlmann] makes entertainment out of metaphysics.” —Harper’s Magazine

A screenwriter, his wife, and their four-year old daughter rent a house in the mountains of Germany, but something isn’t right. As he toils on a sequel to his most successful movie, the screenwriter notices that rooms aren’t where he remembers them—and finds in his notebook words that are not his own.