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We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind of]
Description
“Hannah Pittard’s memoir is so exquisitely crafted — I loved it.”
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
“I loved this book, which I read in two breathless sittings. An intimate, bold, exquisite exploration of marriage, friendship, rivalry, betrayal.”
—Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Turnout and Beware the Woman
We Are Too Many is an unexpectedly funny, unflinchingly honest, and genre-bending memoir about a marriage-ending affair between award-winning author Hannah Pittard's husband and her captivating best friend.
In this wryly humorous and innovative look at a marriage gone wrong, Hannah Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of unforgettable conversations, beginning with the one in which she discovers her husband has been having sex with her charismatic best friend, Trish. These time-jumping exchanges are fast-paced, intimate, and often jaw-dropping in their willingness to reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. Blending fact and fiction, sometimes re-creating exchanges with extreme accuracy and sometimes diving headlong into pure speculation, Pittard takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with—from the depths of female rage to the heartbreaking ways we inevitably outgrow certain people.
Clever and bold and radically honest to an unthinkable degree, We Are Too Many examines the ugly, unfiltered parts of the female experience, as well as the many (happier) possibilities in starting any life over after a major personal catastrophe.
Praise for We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind of]
Named a Best Book of 2023 (So Far) by Cosmopolitan
Named a Best Book of 2023 by the Chicago Tribune
Named a Most Anticipated Book of May by The Millions
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub
“Stunning... Pittard’s attempt to make sense of the senseless draws the reader toward the same questions. In the end, we are not only drawn into an intimacy with the author, but we may come to know ourselves better as well.”
—John Warner, Chicago Tribune
“We Are Too Many is a genre-busting memoir, a hybrid of memoir, short essays and scripts, or, perhaps more to the point, a speculative memoir that curates memories alongside and intertwined with imagined scenarios and fantasies...sharp, snappy, wry and a pleasure to read.”
—Southern Review of Books
“Kapow! Kablam! This is the most explosive, (self-explosive, marriage-exploding, form demolishing) memoir I've read in eons!”
—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
“Pittard defies genre in her latest... It feels wrong to call such a devastating story juicy, but it is.”
—Bustle
“An honest and heartbreaking book.”
—Cosmopolitan
“In funny and audacious prose, Pittard takes the hybrid memoir genre to an inspiring new level, exploring themes of heartbreak and resilience, subjects that are essential to the human experience.”
—The Millions
“Bold and inventive...Pittard's frankness stings, and the stripped-down format makes this all the more potent. It’s a powerhouse.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A fascinating study of how the mind works when someone is dealing with heartbreak and grief.”
—Library Journal
“Thrilling...Cumulatively, the parts of We Are Too Many tell the story of heartbreak in perhaps the most scorching, gutting, and tantalizing way imaginable.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Hannah Pittard’s We Are Too Many is a truly lacerating exploration of the betrayals that make a marriage. The book is a dagger-like dialogue between husband and wife, wife and best friend, but ultimately the conversation is between Hannah’s selves – some of them self-destructive, some despairing, some hopeful - who must rebuild. We Are Too Many will leave you stunned and tender.”
—Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
“In We Are Too Many, Hannah Pittard collects heartbreaking, revealing, and complex shards of conversation and snapshot memories in an effort to piece together a swiftly-moving, stripped-raw story of a marriage and friendship gone awry. A boldly-rendered and honestly-told memoir that’s as innovative as it is engrossing.”
—Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch
“With its heartbreaking and hilariously fast-paced dialogue and its unique self-awareness, Pittard’s new book is an extraordinary journey into the private life of one of our best writers.”
—Ada Limón, poet laureate of the United States
“Pittard is hilarious, inciting, heartbreaking, and enlightening, often all on the same page. We Are Too Many is a brilliant, soul-stirring, and utterly original investigation of marriage, friendship, and life.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop
“I read We Are Too Many all in a rush, so wrapped up in the drama and brilliant reflection Pittard makes of that drama that the world around me dropped away. Written with a fresh, empowered use of all the registers creative nonfiction offers, this memoir is a passionate recounting of the complex joys and terrors of marriage and friendship.”
—CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays
“I opened this book at the beauty parlor and two chapters in started hand-selling it to strangers. Hannah Pittard’s memoir is her best book yet. It is raw, daring, honest, and fair. I want to give it to high school graduates and say, ‘Watch out for this. And this. And this.’ This book is an AP course in red flags. Reading it—the real-life twists and turns written by a woman scorned and reborn at the top of her game—I rooted for her: ‘Go, Hannah, go!’”
—Helen Ellis, author of Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light
“As the subtitle implies, this is a somewhat unorthodox memoir — revealing and painful, yet also quite refreshing and funny. It's a superb balancing act, and a fast, engrossing read."
—Ed Park, author of the forthcoming Same Bed Different Dreams
“Reading We Are Too Many is like encountering a new, previously unknown animal. Part memoir, part reconstructed conversations, part speculative conversations, part historical conjecture, these fractured elements intertwine and coalesce into a stunning portrait of a crumbling marriage and the ultimate betrayal by a best friend.”
—Rob Spillman, author of All Tomorrow’s Parties
“We Are Too Many is an astonishingly intimate curation of conversations recalled in the wake of bruising infidelity. It is also a devastating account of the demons that trip up so many of us, especially writers—our bodies and our appetites, our windfalls and our debts, our fear of abandonment and our lust for experience. Most beautifully, however, this is a book about forgiveness—not so much forgiving those fools who trespass against us, but rather looking clearly at our past selves and forgiving our own selves for our flaws, our delusions, and our incessant, keening, wonderfully human need for love.”
—Dean Bakopoulos, author of Summerlong
“A truly unique investigation of what happens when two people who love each other get married and then lose sight of themselves.”
—Adam Ross, author of Mr. Peanut
