Encyclopedia of Lies

Availability:
Ebook in EPUB format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order

DRM:
Watermark

Publication Year:
2017

ISBN-13: 9781772141092

<p>”To give a feeling of Christopher Gudgeon’s new collection, let’s turn to the story that gives the book its name. In The Widow Sor&eacute;, the title character finds among her deceased fianc&eacute; Guillermo’s papers what appears to be a stack of letters. Titled <i>The Encyclopedia of Lies</i>, the letters recount the romantic, outsized exploits of another Guillermo, or one whom Isabel takes to be another Guillermo, because this must be a work of fiction, unless. Isabel travels to visit another woman who might hold the answer. ‘Any evidence regarding the true nature of Guillermo &ndash; whether he was one man or two, many or all &ndash; was not as important as the words each woman used to define their memories of him,’ Gudgeon writes. The implication runs through Gudgeon’s motley crew: roughly half of these 16 stories contain a recurring cast glanced from multiple angles. We contain multitudes, but our many-or-allness is less important than the stories that define us, even if those stories turn out to be an encyclopedia of lies.”(<i>The Globe and Mail</i>)</p><p>"Here’s a writer with real range. … Some stories are very short, just two pages; several are connected. There are 26 in all, many memorable, most pitch-perfect.” (Toronto Star)</p> <p>In these sixteen stories, Christopher Gudgeon, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed <i>Song of Kosovo</i>,takes a heartbreaking and hilarious look into the lives, loves, sexual obsessions and delusions that inform a grand cast of off-kilter characters.</p> <p>Here is a gay couple who persevere with their marriage plans as the world, literally, crumbles around them, a woman who discovers the mysterious collection of letters that reveals a terrifying truth about her deceased finance, a dutiful son, locked in an life-or-death marathon race with his famous father, and a baby who becomes infested with fruit flies, sending his adoptive parents into a spiral of recrimination and self-doubt.</p> <p>At once bitterly funny, provocative and poignant, this remarkable collection, follow up to <i>Greeting from the Vodka Sea</i>, Gudgeon’s short story debut, <i>The Encyclopedia of Lies</i> builds on his growing literary reputation, offering up the work of a great storyteller at his very best.</p>