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True Story: A Novel
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Author:
Petty, Kate Reed
Published:
Penguin Publishing Group 2020
Status:
Checked Out
Description
“A gripping, ripped-from-headlines tale.” —People 
“Spellbinding.” —Megan Abbott, The New York Times Book Review 

Tracing the fifteen-year fallout of a toxic high school rumor, a riveting, astonishingly original debut novel about the power of stories—and who gets to tell them
2015. A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories. But she is haunted by the one story she can't tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep."
1999. Nick Brothers and his lacrosse teammates return for their senior year at their wealthy Maryland high school as the reigning state champions. They're on top of the world—until two of his friends drive a passed-out girl home from of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor about what happened in the backseat spreads through the town like wildfire.
The boys deny the allegations, and, eventually, the town moves on. But not everyone can. Nick descends into alcoholism, and Alice builds a life in fits and starts, underestimating herself and placing her trust in the wrong people. When she finally gets the opportunity to confront the past she can't remember—but which has nevertheless shaped her life—will she take it?
An inventive and breathtaking exploration of a woman finding her voice in the wake of trauma, True Story is part psychological thriller, part fever dream, and part timely comment on sexual assault, power, and the very nature of truth. Ingeniously constructed and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the final pages, it marks the debut of a singular and daring new voice in fiction.
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Fiction
Literature
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
08/04/2020
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781984877697
ASIN:
B0819194M8
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Kate Reed Petty. (2020). True Story: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Kate Reed Petty. 2020. True Story: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Kate Reed Petty, True Story: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2020.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Kate Reed Petty. True Story: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2020.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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e06e14ae-9137-1dd4-1429-5dba98d2586b
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Date Added:
Jul 31, 2020 18:26:50
Date Updated:
Dec 07, 2020 18:55:26
Last Metadata Check:
Feb 25, 2024 14:03:28
Last Metadata Change:
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title
True Story
fullDescription
“A gripping, ripped-from-headlines tale.” —People 
“Spellbinding.” —Megan Abbott, The New York Times Book Review 

Tracing the fifteen-year fallout of a toxic high school rumor, a riveting, astonishingly original debut novel about the power of stories—and who gets to tell them
2015. A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories. But she is haunted by the one story she can't tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep."
1999. Nick Brothers and his lacrosse teammates return for their senior year at their wealthy Maryland high school as the reigning state champions. They're on top of the world—until two of his friends drive a passed-out girl home from of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor about what happened in the backseat spreads through the town like wildfire.
The boys deny the allegations, and, eventually, the town moves on. But not everyone can. Nick descends into alcoholism, and Alice builds a life in fits and starts, underestimating herself and placing her trust in the wrong people. When she finally gets the opportunity to confront the past she can't remember—but which has nevertheless shaped her life—will she take it?
An inventive and breathtaking exploration of a woman finding her voice in the wake of trauma, True Story is part psychological thriller, part fever dream, and part timely comment on sexual assault, power, and the very nature of truth. Ingeniously constructed and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the final pages, it marks the debut of a singular and daring new voice in fiction.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        June 1, 2020
        In Perry’s captivating debut, 30-something ghostwriter Alice Lovett is haunted by what happened at a lacrosse party 16 years earlier in a Baltimore suburb. In 1999, Nick Brothers and his high school lacrosse team are known for their legendary post-championship parties, usually followed by a midnight recap at their favorite Denny’s. After one party his senior year, Nick shows up at Denny’s with his crush Haley Moreland just in time to catch two of his teammates bragging about what they did with a passed out private school girl—whom the reader eventually learns is Alice—in the back of one of their cars. The facts of what happened that night morph as the story spreads through their suburban community, and the consequences will shape Alice, Haley, Nick, and his teammates over the following decades. Perry eschews conventional structure, replacing parts of the narrative with drafts of Alice’s college admissions essays, her emails to Haley after an abusive relationship as an adult, and Alice and Haley’s teenage screenplays to incendiary effect, and they mix seamlessly with the nimble prose. Though the plot sometimes wanders, Perry’s page-turner is as sly and devastating as the nature of truth. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from June 1, 2020
        Petty's innovative, genre-busting debut opens with a vignette set in Barcelona, in which an unnamed narrator addresses another unnamed character, telling her she's sorry for standing her up. From there, the novel rockets through metafictional sections?a script for a horror movie, a first-person narrative, a set of revisions for a college essay, and more?which initially seem disparate but are inevitably connected. In the first substantive segment, a young lacrosse player named Nick Brothers explains what happened to him and his team in 1999. Two boys on Nick's team drove a private school student named Alice Lovett home, and rumors of assault swirled, but no one ever proved what really happened. The event's repercussions ripple out through time, as Petty explores it from various perspectives until revealing a set of shocking truths. Alice gets to tell her side, too, but in a wholly unexpected way. Themes of friendship, abuse, reality, and trauma resonate in this puzzle box of a book, and readers will be unable to put it down until they figure it out.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

popularity
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“A gripping, ripped-from-headlines tale.” —People 
“Spellbinding.” —Megan Abbott, The New York Times Book Review 

Tracing the fifteen-year fallout of a toxic high school rumor, a riveting, astonishingly original debut novel about the power of stories—and who gets to tell them
2015. A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories. But she is haunted by the one story she can't tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep."
1999. Nick Brothers and his lacrosse teammates return for their senior year at their wealthy Maryland high school as the reigning state champions. They're on top of the world—until two of his friends drive a passed-out girl home from of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor about what happened in the backseat spreads through the town...
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Penguin Publishing Group
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