All the Secrets of the World by Steve Almond
“A breathtaking success . . . dazzling.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“[A] rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel―part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious.” ―Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers
Who pays for the secrets we keep? For the lies we tell ourselves?
- Sale Date
- ISBN
- 9781638930686
- Page Count
- 416
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 5½ x 8¼
- Imprint
- Zando
Meet the Author
Steve Almond
“A breathtaking success . . . dazzling.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“[A] rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel―part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious.” ―Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers
Who pays for the secrets we keep? For the lies we tell ourselves?
Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for a school project by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different backgrounds. Jenny is pretty and popular, and Lorena is quickly drawn into the family’s picture-perfect suburban lifestyle. Jenny’s mother, Rosemary, is glamorous, but needy―she treats Lorena like a friend, if only to break up the monotony of lonely afternoons. Jenny’s father, Marcus, spends his days teaching and his nights wandering the desert, absorbed in his research on the scorpions of Death Valley. Outwardly, they are the perfect family, poised for success in 1981 Sacramento at the dawn of a glorious American decade. Lorena finds her access intoxicating and alluring, a far cry from her life in the small apartment she shares with her single mother.
But the veneer is shattered when Marcus disappears. The prime suspect: Lorena’s troubled older brother, Tony.
To uncover the truth, Lorena must embark on an unforgiving odyssey into the desert, into the secrets and lies of the Stallworth family, and the dark heart of America’s criminal justice system. A shape-shifting social novel, All the Secrets of the World is a propulsive tour de force from a writer at the height of his powers.
“[A] rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel―part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious.” ―Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers
Who pays for the secrets we keep? For the lies we tell ourselves?
Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for a school project by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different backgrounds. Jenny is pretty and popular, and Lorena is quickly drawn into the family’s picture-perfect suburban lifestyle. Jenny’s mother, Rosemary, is glamorous, but needy―she treats Lorena like a friend, if only to break up the monotony of lonely afternoons. Jenny’s father, Marcus, spends his days teaching and his nights wandering the desert, absorbed in his research on the scorpions of Death Valley. Outwardly, they are the perfect family, poised for success in 1981 Sacramento at the dawn of a glorious American decade. Lorena finds her access intoxicating and alluring, a far cry from her life in the small apartment she shares with her single mother.
But the veneer is shattered when Marcus disappears. The prime suspect: Lorena’s troubled older brother, Tony.
To uncover the truth, Lorena must embark on an unforgiving odyssey into the desert, into the secrets and lies of the Stallworth family, and the dark heart of America’s criminal justice system. A shape-shifting social novel, All the Secrets of the World is a propulsive tour de force from a writer at the height of his powers.
Praise for All the Secrets of the World
-
“[A] masterful, nervy, complex and confrontational work that flays the white beasts of power, excoriates the American dream, and serves up a ferocious indictment of the Fourth Estate, all while encased inside a brilliant Gobstopper of a book that changes flavor, shape and hue the longer it sits on the tongue, staining us with its unflinching, irresistible honesty. . . . Almond injects his bitter truth serum into storytelling so propulsive, characters so alive, and language so dynamic that it’s impossible to put this sucker down.”
Sara Lippman, Chicago Review of Books -
“A breathtaking success . . . At times a race-to-the-finish mystery, this book can also rightly be categorized as a searing meditation on the multigenerational traumas endured by a family of undocumented immigrants . . . It is a dazzling magic trick that explains why the author reportedly took 30 years to complete the manuscript . . . the wait, it turns out, has been entirely worth it.”
Zack Ruskin, San Francisco Chronicle -
“[An] edgy, retroactive thrill ride . . . Wealth, power, influence, race, America’s broken criminal justice system, and a cameo by Nancy Reagan all play significant parts in this examination of buried truths, prejudices, class structure, and morality. [In All the Secrets of the World] we’re presented with the accumulation of [Almond’s] talent for intricate storytelling, his skillset as a reporter, and his lifelong compassion for all human beings, no matter their flaws or shortcomings. The result is epic.”
Raj Tawney, Miami New Times
About the Imprint
Where the unexpected lives. Fiction that surprises. Nonfiction that sticks. The Zando imprint publishes weird, wonderful, and culture-shaping stories from authors with something to say . . . and the confidence to say it loudly.
