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    Too Good to Be True: A Memoir
    Too Good to Be True: A Memoir
    Too Good to Be True: A Memoir
    Audiobook6 hours

    Too Good to Be True: A Memoir

    Written by Benjamin Anastas

    Narrated by Tim Lundeen

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When he was three, in the early 1970s, Benjamin Anastas found himself in his mother’s fringe-therapy group in Massachusetts, a sign around his neck: Too Good to Be True. The phrase haunted him through his life, even as he found the literary acclaim he sought after his 1999 novel, An Underachiever’s Diary, had made the smart set take notice. Too Good to Be True is his deeply moving memoir of fathers and sons, crushing debt and infidelity—and the first, cautious steps taken toward piecing a life back together.

    “It took a long time for me to admit I had failed,” Anastas begins. Broke, his promising literary career evaporated, he’s hounded by debt collectors as he tries to repair a life ripped apart by the spectacular implosion of his marriage, which ended when his pregnant wife left him for another man. Had it all been too good to be true? Anastas’s fierce love for his young son forces him to confront his own childhood, fraught with mental illness and divorce. His father’s disdain for money might have been in line with the ‘70s zeitgeist—but what does it mean when you’re dumping change into a Coinstar machine, trying to scrounge enough to buy your son a meal? Charged with rage and despair, humor and hope, this unforgettable book is about losing one’s way and finding it again, and the redemptive power of art.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 16, 2012
    ISBN9781469207605
    Too Good to Be True: A Memoir
    Author

    Benjamin Anastas

    Benjamin Anastas is the author of An Underachiever’s Diary (hailed by Very Short List as “the funniest, most underappreciated book of the 1990s”) and The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor’s Disappearance, a New York Times Notable Book. His work has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, Granta, and many other places.

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    Reviews for Too Good to Be True

    3/5

    16 ratings1 review

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    • 3/5
      In part, this book is a love letter from a father to his son, beautifully written. But more than that, it is a story of failure, and it turns out the author means mostly financial failure. I know it is difficult to downsize when things get tough, but I can't wrap my head around worrying a partner will leave me because I'm not solvent, or hiding bill collection notices, or even paying attention to debt collectors. And if these things are important, hasn't this dude heard of bankruptcy?

      Anastas is embarrassed that he counts change to buy groceries. Cashing in less than $9.00 at a Coinstar was humiliating to him. At the end of the month I have split purchases over two debit cards and cash, with said cash being in the form of coins totaling less than $1.00. I'm sure it is different being a parent and provider. Much different. But if he's really worried about not having nine thousand dollars to buy his girlfriend an engagement ring...wow. His standards are far higher than mine.