Three lives, one unreliable narrator and the consequences of losing intimacy. This is All a Lie opens with Ray leaving his mistress for the final time. At the bottom of her apartment tower, he answers his phone. It’s Nancy, his lover, and she is threatening to jump if he drives away. She wants emotional truth in an arena where everything is a lie. She wants a reason to stay alive and Ray is uniquely unqualified to give her what she wants. Ray’s wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray’s messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside. What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray? The answers lie within, perhaps.
About the Author :
Writer THOMAS TROFIMUK's first novel, The 52nd Poem, won the George Bugnet Novel of the Year Award and the City of Edmonton Book Prize. His scond novel, the critically acclaimed Doubting Yourself to the Bone, was named as one of the Globe and Mail's top 100 must-read books for 2006. A third book, Waiting for Columbus, was released in 2009 in the US, Canada, the UK, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, China and Quebec (in translation). Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize and was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In the UK, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection and was picked as one of Richard and Judy's 100 Books of the Decade. He lives (and writes) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Visit: www.thomastrofimuk.com.
Review :
“This Is All A Lie is a powerful, dazzling accomplishment” — Starred Review, Quill & Quire
“excruciatingly good” — Fish Griwkowsky, The Edmonton Journal.
“delightfully inventive and provocative … Ironically, This Is All a Lie comes off as marvelously authentic.” — Dave Williamson, Winnipeg Free Press
“I should have done my chores before cracking this book. It took hold of me on the first page (which is also the last) and did not release its grip. The narrator—part Greek chorus, part provocateur, part stand-up—constantly throws out challenges as the story lines progress. What is the point of convention of any kind? When is sex a lie, with or without love? When is it okay to promote a lie, through word or deed, in a lover’s bed, at home, on the job? Ever? How far might a person be willing to go to perpetuate a lie or some version of truth? This is All a Lie takes on so many questions about human behaviour that it could be a confusing read— but it is not, thanks to the clarity of Trofimuk’s style and his agility in navigating the reader through gripping scenes, contemporary and historical.” — Rona Altrows, author of A Run on Hose
“Thomas Trofimuk’s This is all a lie is a giant flirt of a book—smart, funny, playful, sexy, maybe a little dangerous—easy to fall in love with. Both an aesthetic quest and an excavation of the morality of the moment (which leads to the morality of a lifetime), this book is deep fun.” — Anne Fleming, author of Pool-Hopping and Other Stories
“Innovative, ingenious and incendiary, Trofimuk takes the reader on a wild ride exploring the very nature of literature. With plot lines that twist and turn, characters fully explored both in the present age and long ago, stories about font types, maybe even a Viking or two, you won’t be able to believe anything the narrator tells you, after all, This Is All A Lie. You will question the nature of truth while enjoying a good laugh. Most enjoyable!” — Laurie Greenwood, Independent bookstore owner for over 30 years, book columnist for Global TV and CBC Radio (retired)
“There is, thinks a character in this intense and compelling novel, no absolution for inappropriate love. The various loves in this novel test the delusions of lovers and loneliness alike, the treacherousness of lust, and the lure of unfaithfulness. This exploration of passion and pleasure autopsies the temptations of desire, and the more constant temptation of generosity and commitment. Thomas Trofimuk does not back away from discomfort or tenderness, but faces both with unflinching frankness.” — Aritha van Herk, author of Restlessness
