Can you wholeheartedly enjoy something, but find it deeply uncomfortable at the same time? Love Me Back, the debut novel by Texas-born Merritt Tierce is proof that, yes, you can. Barely out of her own childhood, Marie is already divorced and mum to a little girl she only gets to see on alternate weekends, working – a little too hard – as a waitress to earn a living. But away from the polished silverware and impeccable service, life is a mess of booze, drugs, self-harm and sex. It’s a reckless yet purposeful pattern driven largely by guilt and pain, which Marie manages to hide behind her professionalism at work and ‘up for it’ reputation socially.
As she crashes and battles through life, Tierce’s pacey prose pulls you right along with her. There’s no pausing for apologies, or sentimental explanations, and no hero who comes along and makes everything better. It’s an odd contradiction, as a reader, to wish a story was different – for Marie’s life to be different – while at the same time lapping up its brilliance.
