The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance

Literature & Fiction

Benjamin Anastas

Contemporary

Picador USA

An Underachiever's Diary

Picador

With his debut novel, Benjamin Anastas has written a hymn to the imperfect; in the character William, he has created a definitive antihero for the 90s. `Sparkling . . . extremely funny, bursting with one-liners and the familiar, sharp wit of the New York neurotic' Observer `As a diarist, William is a sit-down comedian. We are in the nerdy, nervy territory of Woody Allen and Nicholson Baker here . . . both funny and moving' Time Out `A richly comic novel that directs its satirical energies against the idea of success . . . a deft performance' Daily Telegraph `Unconcerned as to whether he is liked or loathed, William can cast a curious rhetorical spell and, in the end, we love him despite ourselves' The Times `The sly fiction's greatest strength is the finely tuned voice Anastas has created for William, who takes us . . . through his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood without ever faltering in his often droll, deadpan delivery . . . his celebration of less over more serves as an unusual tonic' LA Times

When he was three, in the early 1970s, Benjamin Anastas found himself in his mother’s fringe-therapy group in Massachusetts, a sign around his neck: Too Good to Be True. The phrase haunted him through his life, even as he found the literary acclaim he sought after his 1999 novel, An Underachiever’s Diary, had made the smart set take notice. Too Good to Be True is his deeply moving memoir of fathers and sons, crushing debt and infidelity—and the first, cautious steps taken toward piecing a life back together.“It took a long time for me to admit I had failed,” Anastas begins. Broke, his promising literary career evaporated, he’s hounded by debt collectors as he tries to repair a life ripped apart by the spectacular implosion of his marriage, which ended when his pregnant wife left him for another man. Had it all been too good to be true? Anastas’s fierce love for his young son forces him to confront his own childhood, fraught with mental illness and divorce. His father’s disdain for money might have been in line with the ’70s zeitgeist—but what does it mean when you’re dumping change into a Coinstar machine, trying to scrounge enough to buy your son a meal? Charged with rage and despair, humor and hope, this unforgettable book is about losing one’s way and finding it again, and the redemptive power of art.

Too Good to Be True

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

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Books by Benjamin Anastas