Twenty-one Truths About Love
A Novel
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3.8 • 13 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the beloved author of Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend comes a wonderful new novel about a struggling man, written entirely in lists.
Daniel Mayrock's life is at a crossroads. He knows the following to be true:
1. He loves his wife Jill... more than anything.
2. He only regrets quitting his job and opening a bookshop a little (maybe more than a little)
3. Jill is ready to have a baby.
4. The bookshop isn’t doing well. Financial crisis is imminent. Dan doesn't know how to fix it.
5. Dan hasn’t told Jill about their financial trouble.
6. Then Jill gets pregnant.
This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances:
1. Dan wants to do something special.
2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary.
3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure.
4. He doesn't want to live in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband.
Dan is also an obsessive list maker; his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to do anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dicks (Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend) chronicles the mounting economic and romantic anxieties of expectant father Dan Mayrock through Dan's scribbled lists and notes, a gimmick that can't quite be sustained for the length of a novel. Dan's wife, Jill, was widowed when he met her, and Dan constantly compares himself to the specter of her seemingly perfect first husband, Peter. He's certain that Peter would never have done what Dan's done: quit his teaching job, open a bookstore, and lie to his pregnant wife about their financial situation, which is becoming dire. As Dan grows desperate in his attempts to shoulder this burden alone, he cooks up a plan to rob a local bingo night, driven to the absurd ("Be aggressive./ Move fast./ It's better to get nothing than to get caught./ Remember that these are old ladies.") in order to provide for his family. Dicks has impeccable comedic timing and touchingly renders family dynamics, but the exhausting list format will fall flat for readers who don't find Dan charming enough to justify it. This experimental work never quite manages to transcend the essential boringness of flipping through someone else's notepad.
Customer Reviews
21 Truths About Love
One of my all time favorite books. So original and creative, funny and incredibly poignant. I’ve been telling my friends and family about it because I think it’s that special.