FREE delivery Monday, June 5 on your first order. Details

Or fastest delivery Saturday, June 3. Order within 13 hrs 23 mins. Details

Only 9 left in stock (more on the way)

[{"displayPrice":"$24.00","priceAmount":24.00,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"24","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"00","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"SlERu%2FRAIYaxnrs3VvtQjEBdY0n713LMQP6S46e8ncZs3rp2EnA26XziTPv%2B30eurMDqxMD9ANxZaPQE3BRWZkAvW%2BocE6LI%2FDeboiRxU6%2BpFZKIn7E5qSZ0RtbTvDvFFxzPACyazsU%3D","locale":"en-CA","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$21.14","priceAmount":21.14,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"21","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"14","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"SlERu%2FRAIYaxnrs3VvtQjEBdY0n713LMTiCpyOCxm4WScljAdoVs4XgnIjsJtqPebSvNT8pBJwsMJ0X3aAVRdrHuS%2FE%2FgsNdPo4Q6En2425audTBxWXsqX58Jm3laawGrrwJC0gmVx3l8pvL3b0lJUT6gsV8wJPEnmQutzM45mG6zDVg8dCMVlSEVyjErdfg","locale":"en-CA","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$24.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.

Return policy: Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Add gift options

FREE delivery June 15 - 27. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore US

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Christina Haag

Come to the Edge: A Love Story Paperback – Jan. 10 2012

by Christina Haag (Author)

4.2 1,028 ratings

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

$15.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$20.00

$14.97

Paperback

"Please retry"

$24.00

$16.91

$20.67

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$26.91

$12.21

—

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

View Kindle Edition

Purchase options and add-ons

The Love Story of JFK Jr. and Christina Haag • New York Times bestseller

When Christina Haag was growing up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep school friends, a skinny kid who lived with his mother and sister on Fifth Avenue and who happened to have a Secret Service detail following him discreetly at all times. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair. Glamorous and often in the public eye, but also passionate and deeply intimate, their relationship was transformative for both of them. Exquisitely written, Come to the Edge is an elegy to first love, a lost New York, and a young man with an enormous capacity for tenderness, and an adventurous spirit, who led his life with surprising and abundant grace.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Random House
Publication date

Jan. 10 2012
Dimensions

13.21 x 1.57 x 20.32 cm
ISBN-10

0385523181
ISBN-13

978-0385523189
See all details

Frequently bought together

$24.00

Only 9 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.

+

Fairy Tale Interrupted: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss

$22.00

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.

+

What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love

$17.00

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

RoseMarie Terenzio
1,337
Hardcover
26 offers from $13.32
Carole Radziwill
4,187
Paperback
57 offers from $9.97
Michael Bergin
179
Hardcover
14 offers from $14.25
Steven M. Gillon
1,241
Paperback
36 offers from $8.44
Clint Hill
805
Library Binding
3 offers from $48.17
J. Randy Taraborrelli
889
Paperback
39 offers from $18.10

Product description

Review

“Lyrically and precisely recaptures the frenetic ecstasy of early love.”—The Washington Post

“[A] wistful story of love and ultimate loss . . . The life of a Kennedy is one of great privilege [and Christina] Haag’s memoir allows us intimate access. . . . She doesn’t bow to tabloid sensationalism; instead, she gently dusts off her tender, aching memories and bravely holds them to the light.”—Los Angeles Times

“Perfectly captures what it feels like to be young and in love—the giddiness, the lunacy, the madcap swings between exhilaration and despair . . . Haag is a beautiful writer.”—Entertainment Weekly

“The most honest, most thoroughly rendered, most memorable memoir of young love published in recent years . . . a remarkable work.”—New York Journal of Books

“[A] haunting memoir.”—Marie Claire

About the Author

Christina Haag is an actress who lives in New York and Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Juilliard School.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We had been together more than a year, and there were things I had learned. He was chivalric and competitive, puritan and sensual. He wore Vetiver and Eau Sauvage, and when he didn’t, his skin was like warm sun. He loved to cook but burned his food, and he slept with the windows open. I wore his sweaters, he ate off my plate, and we spent most nights at his apartment on Ninety-first Street. And if he was in a mood and I wanted something, a small thing -- a light turned on, a fan turned off -- I found that if I said the opposite, it worked like a charm. When I smiled and told him this, it made no difference. Like a reflex, he was helpless to it. He had a theory, he said, that what he called his occasional contrariness was due to being “bossed by so many women” when he was young.

There were things he would say like mantras. They might have been passed along by someone wiser, someone who knew, his uncle, or his mother maybe. He ’d say them to remind himself of human nature and the way of the world; that struggle wasn’t always the best path, but sometimes it was; and that whatever Fortune brought, it wasn’t because he thought himself superior. He had faults, like anyone, but never arrogance, never meanness, never snobbery. What he aimed for, and succeeded some days in attaining, was the remarkable equipoise of humility and confidence that is grace.

My apartment, eight blocks from John’s, had a terrace that jutted over the parlor floor below, and whether he remembered his key or not, John preferred to enter through my window. He’d give a whistle—soft, two-toned, and flirty -- and with a foot on the stone planter and his hand on the iron rail, he ’d hoist himself up the side of the brownstone. I liked it, and the neighbors got used to his Romeo act, but one night when we were in bed, we heard a voice through a bullhorn.

“This is NYPD. Come to the window.”

We burst out laughing. Then a spotlight froze the room.

“You go to the window,” he hissed.

“No, you!”

“Come on . . . the papers.”

I did what he asked and lifted the sash. Everything’s fine, I explained. Just my boyfriend crawling through the window. Below, three officers stood in front of a double-parked squad car, the cherry lights whirling like mad. One of them aimed a bright beam on my face.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. We need to confirm you’re all right.”

“Really, Officer, I’m fine.

“Ma’am, whoever’s in there needs to come to the window at once, or we will enter the apartment.”

John stepped beside me, and they turned the light on him. He spoke with an easy, self-effacing charm, the same way he did with reporters and people he didn’t know well. He didn’t press the point or pull rank; he simply wondered if this might stay off the record. Even two flights down, they recognized him -- not right away, but when the officer in charge began to apologize at length without blinking, it was apparent. Before they got back in the squad car, the junior guy, slow on the uptake, suddenly began shaking his head. “Sir, I think . . . Was that JFK Jr.?”

I closed the window and pulled the lock shut. John was back in bed, hands behind his head and ankles crossed.
He looked pleased. “I’d say we gave them their story for the night, don’t you?”

There were times when he could go unnoticed, slipping through the streets without heads turning or his name being repeated sotto voce as he passed. But after the fall of 1988, when he appeared on the cover of People as the Sexiest Man Alive, that happened less often. From then on, whenever a picture was published in the Post or the Star, it was more likely that strangers would approach to tell him what his father/mother/uncle meant to them. He would be cordial, graceful, and sometimes, depending on his mood, he’d thank them. Most of the time, he would just let them talk. And when they left, it would be with the sense that they knew him, that the words they had said had not been said before.

There would be a shift in him then, effortless and imperceptible to whoever was walking away, but I’d notice. It was as though a measure of spirit would leave him and then, as easy as breath, would slip back in. He had found something that had not quite been realized when he was younger -- a necessary removal that allowed him to walk this world and keep his kindness intact. Conscious of it or not, he had found a persona.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House (Jan. 10 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385523181
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385523189
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 236 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.21 x 1.57 x 20.32 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #701,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,218 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #3,920 in Pop Culture (Books)
- #3,952 in Biographies of the Rich & Famous (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 1,028 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Christina Haag

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Christina Haag is an award-winning actress and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir COME TO THE EDGE. Her book, which chronicles her long friendship and five year love affair with John Kennedy, Jr., is a People magazine and USA Today pick. She was featured on The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, CBS Early Show, The Joy Behar Show, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, and profiled in People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Winner of the Ella Dickey Literacy Award, her writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Variety, and Hamptons Magazine, and she is a contributor to The Brown Reader, a new anthology from Simon and Schuster, along with Jeffrey Eugendides, Meg Wolitzer, and Marilynne Robinson.

Christina continues to work in film, theater, and television. Winner of the Dramalogue Award for Outstanding Actress, she has performed at theaters across the country, notably Arena Stage, the Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, Theater for a New Audience, and the Geffen Playhouse. Her many television credits include ER, Heroes, Providence, Family Law, Boston Public, Law and Order, Law and Order:SVU, and leading roles in movies of the week. She stars in the upcoming feature Half-Brother. A graduate of Brown University and Juilliard, she lives in New York City and is currently working on a novel.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

1,028 global ratings

5 star		56%
4 star		23%
3 star		13%
2 star		4%
1 star		4%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Johanna Samuel

A deeply moving, yet unsentimental love story - haunting and exhilarating.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

Christina Haag describes love so deeply and so simply as she intimately writes about her friendship and then romantic relationship with John F.Kennedy Jr. Her memoir has a haunting quality to it, not only because we know the last tragic chapter but because she is able to transport the reader into a New York that is naive, glamorous, dangerous, rarified and now gone. COME TO THE EDGE is a memoir/history novel that one tries to slow down one’s reading while nearing the end so as not to get to that last page. A brave and beautifully written memoir.

“Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, We will fall!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew”
Guillaume Apollinaire

I wept and was engaged from beginning to end. The book has so much grace and sensitivity- it is a timeless love letter. Christina Haag reveals her deep sensitivity and discretion and never slips into sensationalism- she is all restraint and simple honesty and she is a beautifully gifted writer. This is a moving personal and delicate memoir about love, loss and what might have been.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 1, 2021

Verified Purchase

This was an eloquent, moving account of Haag's relationship with JFK, Jr. Honest and beautifully written, unlike the typical sensationalist celebrity biographies.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book was well-written and I found it mesmerizing, giving new insights into JFK Jr. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 29, 2017

Verified Purchase

An interesting read and was donated to a book sale.
Anne

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Marianna C. Travlos

A poignant memoir of life, love and loss

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Christina Haag is clearly a sensitive and reflective soul who has written a lovely memoir of young-not first- love. Though I never personally knew John Kennedy jr., I have read a great deal and spoken to people who did know him and she seemed to capture him as I had imagined- full of love, sweet and tender. In other words, a great guy and someone who must have been a dream to be in love with- not because of who his parents were or what his name was- but simply because he was gorgeous on the inside and on the out- sensitive, kind and good. This memoir should relate both to Kennedy family fans as well as to those who are indifferent to the idea of John as the 'heir to the throne' because, though one of the characters is famous, it is mostly a universal love story that anyone who has loved and lost can relate to. It's beautifully written and never glamorizes John or his family, nor judges him or it. It is what it is- a poignant recollection of friendship, love and loss. Christina Haag should feel proud of her work because she wrote it beautifully and respectfully and I believe that John -and possibly even Jackie- would have approved of it.

5 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Deets on Jr

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 13, 2019

Verified Purchase

A little long winded but it shows another side of who JR was.

H. Sharfeddin

Much Ado about Nothing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 29, 2020

Verified Purchase

BORING! I don’t recommend this book. I’m half way through and it has been an arduous chore reading few pages daily.

Das große Ohr

Herzensbrecher

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on March 11, 2023

Verified Purchase

Die Autorin hatte eine langjährige Beziehung mit John F. Kennedy jr.
Sie schreibt sehr liebevoll über diese Zeit, aber der Leser weiss, dass ihr Herz gebrochen und ihr ganzes Leben davon bestimmt wurde. Selten erfuhr man soviele intime Details über John und auch seine Mutter. Ich habe schon viele Bücher über die Kennedys gelesen. Dies ist eines der schönsten, auch wenn das tragische Ende naht.

Translate review to English

Carrick Ryan

Full of heart and soul with a touch of magic

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on August 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

Christina Haag’s memoir is full of heart and soul. It has just the right amount of sentimentality and nostalgia, joy and sadness, life’s full spectrum of emotions, written in a deeply sensitive and elegant manner. It is not only about young love and childhood friendships, it is a love letter to her city, her youth and life in general. There is a touch of magic there and by the time you finish you will want to give her a hug and be her friend. I wish her all things magical.
Regina Ryan

See all reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract and engage customers	Amazon Business Everything for your business	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust	Blink Smart Security for Every Home

Buy new: $24.00$24.00 FREE delivery: Monday, June 5 Ships from: Amazon.ca Sold by: Amazon.ca

Buy used: $21.14

Follow the Author

Come to the Edge: A Love Story Paperback – Jan. 10 2012

Purchase options and add-ons

Frequently bought together

Customers who bought this item also bought

Product description

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

About the author

Christina Haag

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy new:

$24.00

FREE delivery: Monday, June 5

Ships from: Amazon.ca

Sold by: Amazon.ca

Buy used:

$21.14