<p>If personal memory is false, what happens when you try to construct a memory of something that you don’t remember but should—that you desperately want to remember? WHAT SOME WOULD CALL LIES is a collection of literary novellas meditating on life, art, and the vicissitudes of memory. The complete manuscript includes two novellas.“Shoplifting” is the story of Monica Evans, an aspiring author, a young mother struggling to raise a toddler, a neglected wife juggling a long-distance marriage, and a woman grieving her sister’s death. In an attempt to come to terms with this most recent loss—and to jump-start her stalled artistic life—Monica decides to write her late sister’s autobiography in the first person. This decision angers and confuses some readers (including her mother), but it pushes Monica toward healing. Reminiscent of the work of Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore, “Shoplifting” is by turns witty and wistful. Employing a touch of metafiction, the story raises real questions about memory, authorship, the ownership of stories, and the many ways we steal from others—and ourselves.In “Infidels,” an unorthodox substitute teacher awakens sixth-grader Jackie Rose’s floundering sense of focus and ambition. At the same time, an alluring older girl initiates him into the world of desire and longing. Meanwhile, Jackie’s parents are moving toward an inevitable separation, and Jackie will face hard choices. Set against the backdrop of an upper Midwestern childhood in the 1970s, steeped in the lingering anxiety of the Cold War and the comforting nostalgia of pop radio, “Infidels” is a classic coming-of-age story with an unforgettable, heart-breaking ending. Told in a reflective, lyrical voice similar to Richard Ford (Rock Springs, Wildlife) and Alistair MacLeod (Island), this is a story with timeless appeal written in polished and enduring prose.</p>

What Some Would Call Lies

Literature & Fiction

Davidson, Rob

United States

Formal Feeling Publishing

<p>“Before brims with the ordinary lives of neighbors and family, where little girls die suddenly of meningitis, people are mistreated or loved, and men in their garages never finish repairing their motorcycles or their wives’ pie plates. Life, the book reminds us, is tragic, life is funny, and art shows us these wholes. The language is all ruckus and grace and humanity, and the words won’t go away.”Carol Frost“Robert Bensen is a poet of the highest ambition, who accepts tremendous challenges and acquits himself skillfully. His book is a generous feast for the imagination.”X. J. Kennedy, Robert Frost Medal, Jackson Poetry Prize“Here is a beautiful wide-ranging collection of poems by one of the best poets now writing in these United States. There are exquisite lyrics, explosive political poems, explorations of little-known historic places, people, events. This is a major collection of poems: it will delight, astonish, and educate those who are lucky enough to find and enjoy it for themselves.”Carter Revard, An Eagle Nation and Family Matters/Tribal Affairs“Robert Bensen is a poet of great—and ever more necessary—balance. He opens the register wide, writing with honesty, insight, and a superb ear. Reading his poems, we feel the bubble in the level go right to dead center.” Sven Birkerts, The Electric Life: Essays on Modern Poetry“A tuned, well-tempered distemper springs from these poems. Robert Bensen grasps our mortal coil, that hot-white internal wrestling, with exacting force and grace.”Ishion Hutchinson, House of Lords and Commons“Here is lyric poetry of a high order, of kinetic energy, of springyEnglish, elegiac, celebratory, polished, technically highly-skilled.” DAVID GREYSMITH, author of Rhyme Gist</p>

Before

Bensen, Robert

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What Some Would Call Lies

Before