Decadent. Daring. Delicious. From the multi-prize winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, the dazzlingly funny novel about one woman's (sometimes misguided) search for acceptance.
'The novel everyone is going to be talking about' JASMINE GUILLORY
'Funny and juicy and sexy' SAMANTHA IRBY
'Pure audacious joy!' BONNIE GARMUS
'Deesha Philyaw is a master of detail, desire and delicious humour' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS
'Witty, raunchy, funny as hell' TIA WILLIAMS
'This novel is so alive!' RAVEN LEILANI
'I laughed, I cried, I got turned on! A heroine you can’t help but root for.' RUFI THORPE
___
Meet Scharisse Freeman, the Beyoncé of the megachurch world: bold, unapologetic, ambitious, very much her own woman.
For the same reasons, she has always been a pariah among the other preachers' wives (aka First Ladies).
Hers is a rags-to-Rolex story. From the moment she ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labelled too brash by the First Ladies and too holy by her estranged childhood friend, Petra. Schar doesn’t have a lot of allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an empire spanning from books to branded products - a comfortable life her mother could only have dreamed of.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the validation she’s always craved: an invitation to participate in one of the biggest dates in the megachurch world, the First Lady USA pageant.
But as the competition nears, a scandal breaks and her carefully curated life threatens to implode...
Funny, smart, and splendidly unruly, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is perfect for fans of books with buzz!
***
A Most Anticipated Book of year by PEN America, Lit Hub, BookPage, and Ms. Magazine
'This book is so damn good. Sexy, messy, funny AF...it slaps with a perfectly manicured open hand.' NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS
'Fasten your seatbelt...a funny yet sobering literary exploration of aspiration, double-standards, shame, heartbreak and healing' CHARMAINE WILKERSON
'Sexy, shocking and funny as hell.… Deesha Philyaw has written a love letter to the women in this world.' VICTOR LAVALLE
'This one is special. Like, forever special.' KIESE LAYMON
'Irresistibly catty, twisty, and packed with secrets.' MATEO ASKARIPOUR
About the Author :
The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is the highly anticipated debut novel from Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. This acclaimed short story collection won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction and Reckon True Stories.
Review :
Deesha Philyaw is a master of detail, desire and delicious humour. This is a debut novel that could be deep into Philyaw's catalogue. I couldn't get enough.
I read the first three pages and that was all it took--I was hooked. Pure audacious joy! Sign me up for the Deesha Philyaw fan club!
Being set in the exclusive world of the wealthy, Black mega-church elite would be reason enough to gobble this novel down, but Schar’s transformation from disempowered try-hard, chasing after the approval of the other First Ladies, to utterly authentic badass is so well earned and so heartfelt — I laughed, I cried, I got turned on! Philyaw has created a heroine you can’t help but root for, and a book you can’t help but love.
I enjoyed the hell out of this. Smart and juicy and compulsively readable, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is the novel everyone is going to be talking about. It’s everything I want in a book.
This novel is so alive! Philyaw manages the tension between faith and desire with an expert hand.
I love mess, nothing in the world is better than scandalous church mess, and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is funny and juicy and sexy and a delicious peek behind the pulpit of a Black megachurch. Deesha Philyaw is so good at writing complex characters who feel full and alive — I wanted to live inside this book, volunteer for the usher board for this book, tithe my ten percent to this book. As a matter of fact, that’s me in the front pew, waving my MLK fan, shouting ‘Amen’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ What a good-ass book!
Fasten your seatbelt, a megachurch pastor’s wife is about to take you on a funny yet sobering literary exploration of aspiration, double-standards, shame, heartbreak and healing. Deesha Philyaw has a way with dialogue and desire on the page and her talents are on full display here as she mines the often murky territory between public image and private accountability.
Propelled by a ferocious love for others, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman heals as much as it humors, inspires as much as it scandalizes, and may just turn you on as much as it forces you to turn inward. Irresistibly catty, twisty, and packed with secrets.
This book is so damn good. Sexy, messy, funny AF, with a message tucked tight in the satire. It slaps with a perfectly manicured open hand.
Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era. Philyaw loves these characters and place as much as characters and place can be fictively loved, but it is her care for, and ability to thwart, readerly expectations that feel wholly innovative… This one is special. Like, forever special.
