The End of the Story

The End of the Story
Genre : Fiction
Published : 26 Mar 2015 - Penguin
'It surprised me, over and over, to find that I was with such a young man. He was twenty-two when I met him. He turned twenty-three while I knew him, but by the time I turned thirty-five I did not know where he was anymore.'

Mislabelled boxes, confusing notes, wrong turnings - such are the obstacles in the way of the unnamed narrator of The End of the Story as she organises her memories of a love affair into a novel. With compassion, wit and what seems to be candour, she seeks to determine what she actually knows about herself and her past, but we begin to suspect, along with her, that given the elusiveness of memory and understanding, any tale retrieved from the past must be fiction

Back in print at last, this is Lydia Davis's first - and so far only - novel.

Reviews

Lydia Davis's short stories are perfected economies, witty devices, precision-made, primed to release intelligence, philosophy, hilarity. They celebrate the thinking universe while they redefine the possibilities of the form. There is no other writer quite like her.

Ali Smith

Davis is a high priestess of the startling, telling detail. . . one of the best writers in America.

Colm Tóibín, Daily Telegraph

Her work is exquisite, finely wrought and devastating. . . Read her now!

A. M. Homes

Extraordinary

Newsday

Brilliant

New Yorker