The Truth about Me bookcover

The Truth about Me

Stories
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world

Description

The Truth About Meis the fiction debut of extraordinary stories by New York writer Louise Marburg, in which shortcomings, secrets, and inventions turn notions of love and self upside down. No matter what their station in life, the characters in these wry and moving stories face moments in which the shock of being and becoming comes from within. tied by a thread of personal revelation, the characters in each are either hiding, revealing, or discovering an essential truth about themselves. In the title story, a mentally ill yet well off man buys a house in a working class neighborhood and attempts to hide his affliction from the people who befriend him. In " Stick Shift," a sheltered debutante meets an older man at a bar and cedes to her adventuresome side. " The Other Rachel Hersch," is the story of an assistant to a literary agent who pretends to be someone other than herself in order to deny her obsessive-compulsive past. A grandmother risks her own life to save others from a brutal killer in " Anything Can Happen," and an ill woman in " The Three Stages of Fat" must wrestle with her overwhelming vanity. Both dark and funny, The Truth About Me explores the complexities of self-knowledge in ordinary lives.

Product Details

PublisherWtaw Press
Publish DateSeptember 14, 2017
Pages160
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9780998801407
Dimensions8.9 X 6.0 X 0.6 inches | 0.6 pounds

About the Author

Louise Marburg studied design at the Kansas City Art Institute, is a graduate of New York University's Gallatin Division, and holds a Master's Degree in Fiction from Columbia University's School of the Arts. Her stories have been published in Cold Mountain Review, The Lascaux Review Prize Anthology, Necessary Fiction, and other publications. A native of Baltimore, she lives in New York City and Connecticut with her husband, the artist Charles Marburg, and their three French Bulldogs.

Reviews

"These stories are pleasurably startling, even thrilling. Louise Marburg's characters go through the shifts and sunderings of life in vivid and lyrically direct prose, and your blood jumps. Smart, assured, masterful stories from a wonderfully audacious new voice." --Richard Bausch, author of Before, During, After and Living in the Weather of the World

"Louise Marburg's collection, The Truth About Me, is wonderful. These are smart and lovely stories, perceptive, compassionate, and sometimes shocking. Who are these people, so helpless in the currents that surround them? Marburg reveals their cowardice, their flaws, and their deep capacities to engage the heart." --Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta: A Novel

"The Truth About Me, Louise Marburg's stunning debut collection, offers powerful, finely crafted stories and a myriad of memorable characters--some looking out at the world from behind a curtain, others peering in. What is at the core of each is human fragility: addiction, mental illness, grief, longing. Marburg know how to take those dark breathtaking turns and then ease us into a place of understanding and compassion. She also has a wonderful sense of humor and an uncanny eye for locating the absurd, prompting laughter where you least expect it. A terrific collection by a very talented writer." --Jill McCorkel, author of Life After Life and Going Away Shoes

​"The Truth About Me is cleverly titled, as its author's capacious heart has room for a vast array of very different characters, each of whom receives the fully serious respect and sympathy in the telling of his or her story. In this way, every reader can find "me" here, not to mention truth. A very fine collection." --Antonya Nelson, author of Funny Once: Stories

Earn by promoting books

Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.sign up to affiliate program link
Become an affiliate