Keynote
A deeply moving memoir of friendship, from the author of The Burning House and Famous Builder
Book Title
The Narrow Door
Subtitle
A Memoir of Friendship
Cover Image
- “A rare look into . . . the life of a significant writer who lived with and loved another significant writer for 15 years. . . . An elegy, an apologia, and a triumph.”—Alexander Chee, The New York Times Book Review
Body
In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling collage of scenes and images drawn from two long-term relationships, one with a woman novelist and the other with his ex-husband, a poet. The contours of these relationships shift constantly. Denise and Paul, stretched by the demands of their writing lives, drift apart, and Paul’s romance begins to falter. And the world around them is frail: environmental catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and local disturbances make an unsettling backdrop to the pressing concerns of Denise’s cancer diagnosis and Paul’s impending breakup. Lisicky’s compassionate heart and resilience seem all the stronger in the face of such searing losses. His survival—hard-won, unsentimental, authentic—proves that in turning toward loss, we embrace life.
List Price
$16.00
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About the Author
Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
Praise
- “Mr. Lisicky has a gift for understanding suffering, an added bundle of receptors for detecting loneliness.”—The New York Times
- “It’s Lisicky’s radical honesty about all this—life and death, friendship and lost love, ambition and failure—that makes this book so special and at times so unsettling.”—Los Angeles Times
- “Achingly gorgeous, wildly ambitious. . . . You know you’re reviewing an exceptional book when the best way to make your case, to convince your readers to run out and read it, is to quote at length from its pages, starting with page one, sentence one.”—Chicago Tribune
- “By the time I finished the first chapter of Paul Lisicky’s lyrical new memoir, I was certain this was an essential book.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
