The End of Romance: An Evening with Lily Meyer

A big-hearted, wise, unceasingly buoyant novel about a woman who, after escaping a bruising marriage, theorizes that happiness is possible solely with the eradication of all romance--only to find a love that could change her life forever

Sylvie Broder was taught early to embrace joy. The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors whose greatest priority was enjoying the life they'd snatched back from Hitler, Sylvie believes in the tenacious pursuit of pleasure—yet, somehow, finds herself trapped in a suffocating, emotionally abusive marriage. With enormous fortitude, Sylvie frees herself and turns to graduate school, where she develops a new philosophy: Straight women will find true liberation and happiness only once romance is eradicated.

Now, Sylvie prides herself in separating sex from tenderness—having fun with men, but never committing to one. Then she meets Robbie and Abie, and finds her philosophy sorely tested. A warm and gentle man, Robbie treats Sylvie with patience and enormous kindness, offering her comfort she hasn't had since childhood. Abie is passionate and dynamic, a man who challenges Sylvie, and with whom she finds herself constantly disarmed. With both men, she feels a deep desire that looks, worryingly, a lot like love.

Cleverly constructed, delightfully funny, and beautifully written, The End of Romance is an anti-romance romance novel that charts its fallible heroine's tumultuous journey to love and happiness with erudition and deep feeling—a story for anyone who, despite their very best efforts, has fallen in love, and wondered why.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies of The End of Romance will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Downbound Books.

About Lily Meyer

Lily Meyer is a translator, a critic, and the author of the novels The End of Romance (Viking, 2026) and Short War (Deep Vellum, 2024). She is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Her stories and translations can be found in The Dial, The Drift, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals, and her essays and criticism appear in outlets including Bookforum, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Book Review.

About Leah Stewart

LEAH STEWART is the author of six novels: Body of a Girl, The Myth of You and Me, Husband & Wife, The History of Us, The New Neighbor, and What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw. Her other accomplishments include an NEA Literature Fellowship, awards for promoting literature in Cincinnati and Ohio, and chairing her English department. She received her BA from Vanderbilt and her MFA from the University of Michigan. Before becoming a professor at the University of Cincinnati, where she teaches in the undergraduate major and the Creative Writing PhD program. She served as staff at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference from 1995 to 2004 and returned to the conference in 2019 as its director.