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Published Nov 2013
416 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Alone in an empty house, Lucy tries to imagine the lives of her two young children. They have been gone for seven years, and she is tormented by the role she played in that heartbreaking loss. You can hardly see a glimpse of the sexy, edgy woman she used to be. Back then, she was a magnet for men like Matt, who loved her beyond reason, and Griffin, who wouldn't let go but always left her wanting more. Now the lies they told and the choices they made have come to haunt all three of them.
With shattering turns, Lies You Wanted to Hear explores the way good people talk themselves into doing terrible, unthinkable things. What happens when we come to believe our own lies? And what price must we pay for our mistakes?
A searing story that will leave you wondering what choices you would make, Lies You Wanted to Hear is a stunning debut.
"[A] well-told narrative of complex characters and their troubled families." - Publishers Weekly
"Thomson lays out the moral complexities underlying acrimonious divorces, taking care to make each side credible, but Lucy's plight will win the greater measure of sympathy." - Booklist
"This first novel by an author who studied with the late Andre Dubus slowly builds momentum, ending with a satisfying twist on the theme of why good love can go bad and what redemption can cost." - Library Journal
"Relentlessly grim melodrama, in the vein of Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer." - Kirkus
This information about Lies You Wanted to Hear 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.
James Whitfield Thomson is a former sales executive and U.S. Navy navigator in Vietnam. Along with Elizabeth Berg, George Packer, Christopher Tilghman, and Dennis Lehane, he was an early member of the late Andre Dubus's writers' workshop. He lives in Natick, Massachusetts. This is his first novel.
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