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.
