From their first encounter, late one night in an underground car park, the narrator of True Things About Me is intoxicated by a stranger who seems to overwhelm her quiet life. But beneath the surface something takes hold that will drive her to extremes of pleasure - and finally, on a cold and eerie night, to face up to her fate.
True Things About Me
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Review
A little book that packs a huge punch...Davies handles the horrifying climax with control and assurance --The Times
A brutal story in brutal prose. --Guardian Saturday Review
Affecting and well described...[with] searing observations of human behaviour. --Joanna Briscoe, Guardian
Glinting with pitch-black humour, Davies's razor-edged style has a lucidity and ferocity that makes much "literary" prose sound like soggy mush --Independent
If darkness has brilliance, this is it.
--Tom Adair
Brutal, funny . . . One of those rare novels that is genuinely about sex, in all its irrationality and potential for self-destruction.
--Lionel Shriver
A brutal story in brutal prose. --Guardian Saturday Review
Affecting and well described...[with] searing observations of human behaviour. --Joanna Briscoe, Guardian
Glinting with pitch-black humour, Davies's razor-edged style has a lucidity and ferocity that makes much "literary" prose sound like soggy mush --Independent
If darkness has brilliance, this is it.
--Tom Adair
Brutal, funny . . . One of those rare novels that is genuinely about sex, in all its irrationality and potential for self-destruction.
--Lionel Shriver
About the Author
Deborah Kay Davies started writing and publishing when she was a mature student at Cardiff University. Her first collection of stories, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful, won the 2009 Wales book of the Year Award. She has also published a collection of poems, Things You Think I Don't Know.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Simon Savidge Reads
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
One of Deborah Kay Davies most powerful tools in her debut novel is to have a nameless narrator. In fact the narrator of `True Things About Me' isn't just nameless; she is really a blank canvas. This means that whatever horrendous things befall her there is a distance between us and her, a space for us to put our own feelings and emotions. It's a risky manoeuvre for an author; people might find the character cold or have to work a little bit harder rather than put themselves in that persons place. Add short chapters and sparse threatening prose and, like with this novel, the risk pays off - you have your reader hooked.
When we meet this unnamed woman she is working as a benefits officer with a night out to the cinema with a colleague, and best friend, Alison later that evening. That is all we know about her before one of the claimants comes in, flirts with her, waits for her outside of work and drags her off for a quick risky sexual encounter in a car park before bundling her off into a taxi. It is this moment that she seems to have been waiting for, this is the moment of her undoing. Afterwards, even though she knows she shouldn't, she searches him out and lets him into her life again, something she will regret as it only brings obsession and abuse.
There is a real sense of threat throughout the book from the moment that this blonde curly haired mystery man enters her life. We know as little about him as we do her, in fact weirdly as the book goes on you feel you know her parents, best friend Alison and Grandma better than you do the person telling you the story, but then they are the observers and the outsiders to her so they should be to us, especially as she goes on isolating them the further into a breakdown she goes.... Read more ›
When we meet this unnamed woman she is working as a benefits officer with a night out to the cinema with a colleague, and best friend, Alison later that evening. That is all we know about her before one of the claimants comes in, flirts with her, waits for her outside of work and drags her off for a quick risky sexual encounter in a car park before bundling her off into a taxi. It is this moment that she seems to have been waiting for, this is the moment of her undoing. Afterwards, even though she knows she shouldn't, she searches him out and lets him into her life again, something she will regret as it only brings obsession and abuse.
There is a real sense of threat throughout the book from the moment that this blonde curly haired mystery man enters her life. We know as little about him as we do her, in fact weirdly as the book goes on you feel you know her parents, best friend Alison and Grandma better than you do the person telling you the story, but then they are the observers and the outsiders to her so they should be to us, especially as she goes on isolating them the further into a breakdown she goes.... Read more ›
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By Roman Clodia
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The unnamed narrator is at work one day when she meets an attractive man just out of prison and a few hours later is having sex with him in a carpark... From the blurb I expected a book about a woman's conscious decision to immerse herself in a dangerous sexual relationship but the story that's actually told here seems to me to be very different. Yes, the narrator's `relationship' is certainly dangerous and reckless (not to mention sordid) but it doesn't seem to me to be a decision at all, it's something that she drifts into without any conscious thought.
The second story, or maybe the main one, is about this same woman's breakdown or the fissures in her psyche (I don't know what the correct psychological language is for this) which leave her alienated from both herself and the world around her. What I felt was unclear from the text was the important question of whether she drifts into the `relationship' because of her mental state or whether her breakdown is itself precipitated by the man she meets. I tend to think it's the former which actually makes the sexual relationship a by-product of her mental vulnerability and therefore actually a bit gratuitous.
Certainly the author manages to capture the alienated state of the narrator's mind with her deadpan, staccato sentences and her inability to make sense of the most normal things. There is an emotional black hole at the centre of the book which conveys the emptiness of the disturbed narrator very well. And on the edges we see the pain she is causing her best friend and her parents who, it appears, are unable to get to grips with her mental fragility and send her off for the help that she needs.... Read more ›
The second story, or maybe the main one, is about this same woman's breakdown or the fissures in her psyche (I don't know what the correct psychological language is for this) which leave her alienated from both herself and the world around her. What I felt was unclear from the text was the important question of whether she drifts into the `relationship' because of her mental state or whether her breakdown is itself precipitated by the man she meets. I tend to think it's the former which actually makes the sexual relationship a by-product of her mental vulnerability and therefore actually a bit gratuitous.
Certainly the author manages to capture the alienated state of the narrator's mind with her deadpan, staccato sentences and her inability to make sense of the most normal things. There is an emotional black hole at the centre of the book which conveys the emptiness of the disturbed narrator very well. And on the edges we see the pain she is causing her best friend and her parents who, it appears, are unable to get to grips with her mental fragility and send her off for the help that she needs.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Loft_dweller
Format:Paperback
Brought this book as i fancied a change fromt he usual read. i can honestly say i will be going back to my usual style of books.
The story i found was very disjointed, no real time line of events to hold on to and to help you place the story. i also did not really feel there was anything in the story to make you feel for the main charector.
to be totally honest a bit of a 'nothing' book
The story i found was very disjointed, no real time line of events to hold on to and to help you place the story. i also did not really feel there was anything in the story to make you feel for the main charector.
to be totally honest a bit of a 'nothing' book
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Lady Fancifull
TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
It's taken me a while to fully understand my feeling of dissatisfaction with True Things About Me, even though much of its focus is done rather well. Meg is a less than stable woman who embarks on a dark, dangerous relationship with a man recently released from prison. Using the first person narrative device she charts her descent into increasing instability and isolation, and into an increasingly abusive and obsessive relationship with her lover.
Part of the problem is the inevitable comparison with another book charting female breakdown. 'It's like The Bell Jar for the twenty-first century' claims the publicity on the cover. Indeed, it was that quote which lured me to read this. And it isn't. Plath's book is rooted in an every day and well defined reality, which is recognisable and plausible. Her protagonist IS normal. It is the juxtaposition of 'everywoman normality' and the plausible, understandable decline which is so shocking, disturbing and unsettling in Plath's book - which lingers in the memory precisely because it could so easily be the reality of many an everywoman.
Although Deborah Kay Davies book also charts a recognisable journey - the sometimes destructive nature of sexual passion and a pattern which is not necessarily a rare one - sado-masochism, her protagonist is so clearly pretty unhinged from the start that there is little tension in the predictable decline. The basic reality just doesn't work well enough to anchor the journey. Her vaguely described job in some sort of 'claimant service' is a plot device only to enable the characters to meet.
Many questions nagged at me as I read: How does she afford her lifestyle?... Read more ›
Part of the problem is the inevitable comparison with another book charting female breakdown. 'It's like The Bell Jar for the twenty-first century' claims the publicity on the cover. Indeed, it was that quote which lured me to read this. And it isn't. Plath's book is rooted in an every day and well defined reality, which is recognisable and plausible. Her protagonist IS normal. It is the juxtaposition of 'everywoman normality' and the plausible, understandable decline which is so shocking, disturbing and unsettling in Plath's book - which lingers in the memory precisely because it could so easily be the reality of many an everywoman.
Although Deborah Kay Davies book also charts a recognisable journey - the sometimes destructive nature of sexual passion and a pattern which is not necessarily a rare one - sado-masochism, her protagonist is so clearly pretty unhinged from the start that there is little tension in the predictable decline. The basic reality just doesn't work well enough to anchor the journey. Her vaguely described job in some sort of 'claimant service' is a plot device only to enable the characters to meet.
Many questions nagged at me as I read: How does she afford her lifestyle?... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark rich and intense
I loved this story. From the first page I was hooked and could not put the book down. It is dark, raw, exciting, thrilling, deeply disturbing and very very sad. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Leigh Attwood
5.0 out of 5 stars
superbly good
True things about me is an emotional book, it can be a bit sad in places. Its one of the best books that i have read. I do recommend this book to readers.
Published 2 months ago by bookmoviefanatic
5.0 out of 5 stars
A haunting and disturbing story very well told
I found this to be a very dark story, which crawled inside my head leaving me feeling a little disoriented and led to some pretty disturbing dreams. Read more
Published 16 months ago by H. Eaton
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too True
The unnamed narrator in Deborah Kay Davies's debut novel, True Things About Me, is ethereal, purposely insubstantial. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mountain Writer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sexually charged
This book is very good, easy to read, and a good story, not much else to say, if you have read the synopsis then you have an idea what it's about, and will want to buy it, which I... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Fletch-a-sketch
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely brilliant and compelling
Cannot recommend this highly enough - I read it in under 4 hours as I could not put it down. The review on the front of the book says 'A Bell Jar for the 21st Century' - I'm not... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Sarah H
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courageous and compelling...
I went towards this novel with some trepidation as I was told about it by a friend. It can be difficult then if you don't like it. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2011 by Emily Davies
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dark and nasty... but feels like emotional truth
This is a queasy and quick read - which fits the plot and protagonist well. It's a story about spiraling from a place of what might be safety or boredom (and the narrator isn't... Read more
Published on 17 May 2011 by Penelope Pitstop
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious, insightful, compelling & disturbing
I heard about this on John Mullan's Culture Show special for World Book Night and was intrigued by what they had to say. Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2011 by Melanie Garrett
5.0 out of 5 stars
good condition, good seller, good book
good condition, speedy delivery, good book, good seller, good communication.
all the things which matter when purchasing from the internet!
all the things which matter when purchasing from the internet!
Published on 6 Dec 2010 by wigglyworms
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