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Published May 2023
224 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
We Are Too Many is an unexpectedly funny, unflinchingly honest, and genre-bending memoir about a marriage-ending affair between award-winning author Hannah Pittard's husband and her captivating best friend.
In this wryly humorous and innovative look at a marriage gone wrong, Hannah Pittard recalls a decade's worth of unforgettable conversations, beginning with the one in which she discovers her husband has been having sex with her charismatic best friend, Trish. These time-jumping exchanges are fast-paced, intimate, and often jaw-dropping in their willingness to reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. Blending fact and fiction, sometimes re-creating exchanges with extreme accuracy and sometimes diving headlong into pure speculation, Pittard takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with—from the depths of female rage to the heartbreaking ways we inevitably outgrow certain people.
Clever and bold and radically honest to an unthinkable degree, We Are Too Many examines the ugly, unfiltered parts of the female experience, as well as the many (happier) possibilities in starting any life over after a major personal catastrophe.
"Bold and inventive...Pittard's frankness stings, and the stripped-down format makes this all the more potent. It's a powerhouse."
―Publishers Weekly
"Connoisseurs of divorce memoirs will enjoy the inventive style choices and unusually nasty details." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs that deal with personal relationships and the journey of discovering oneself." —Library Journal
"Hannah Pittard's We Are Too Many is a truly lacerating exploration of the betrayals that make a marriage. The book is a dagger-like dialogue between husband and wife, wife and best friend, but ultimately the conversation is between Hannah's selves – some of them self-destructive, some despairing, some hopeful - who must rebuild. We Are Too Many will leave you stunned and tender."
―Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
"In We Are Too Many, Hannah Pittard collects heartbreaking, revealing, and complex shards of conversation and snapshot memories in an effort to piece together a swiftly-moving, stripped-raw story of a marriage and friendship gone awry. A boldly-rendered and honestly-told memoir that's as innovative as it is engrossing."
―Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch
"With its heartbreaking and hilariously fast-paced dialogue and its unique self-awareness, Pittard's new book is an extraordinary journey into the private life of one of our best writers."
―Ada Limón, poet laureate of the United States
"Pittard is hilarious, inciting, heartbreaking, and enlightening, often all on the same page. We Are Too Many is a brilliant, soul-stirring, and utterly original investigation of marriage, friendship, and life."
―Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop
This information about We Are Too Many was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Joe Wigdahl
Hannah Pittard is the author of four novels and a forthcoming memoir. Her books have been recommended by the New York Times; Chicago Tribune; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; The Guardian; The Washington Post; Belletrist; Powell's Indie Subscription Club; The Indie Next List; and the Signed First Edition Club at Harvard Bookstore. She is a winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a Macdowell Colony fellow, and a graduate of Deerfield Academy, the University of Chicago, and the University of Virginia. She also spent some time at St. John's College in Annapolis. She is a professor of English at the University of Kentucky and lives in Lexington with her boyfriend and step-daughter.
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