The Law of Loving Others

“Kate Axelrod’s atmospheric, intense book captures perfectly the heady feeling of being on the edge of adulthood, when the abstract concept of ‘love’ starts to have real and sometimes terrifying meaning and consequences.” – Emily Gould, author of Friendship

“THE LAW OF LOVING OTHERS . . .
Hours after Emma returns home from boarding school, she realizes that her mom is suffering from a schizophrenic break. Suddenly, Emma’s entire childhood and identity is called into question.

COULD NOT BE DISCOVERED BY REASON,
Desperate for answers, Emma turns to her boyfriend, Daniel. Will he love her even if she goes crazy too? But it’s the lonely, brooding boy Emma meets while visiting her mother at the hospital who really understands Emma. Phil encourages Emma’s reckless need for hurt and pain in the face of all this change and she is soon caught in a complicated spiral of loss and mistrust.

BECAUSE IT IS UNREASONABLE.”
In the span of just one winter break, Emma’s relationships alter forever and she is forced to see the wisdom in a line from Anna Karenina: “The law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

A beautifully grounded coming-of-age novel, THE LAW OF LOVING OTHERS demands that the listener accept the main character, Emma, for who she is, while also creating deep sympathy for all that she is going through.

Kate Axelrod was born and raised in New York City. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Oberlin College and a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University. She has written for Nerve.com, Salon, and various other publications. She lives in Brooklyn and works as an advocate in the criminal justice system. This is her first novel.