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This Is All A Lie
Three lives, one unreliable narrator and the consequences of losing intimacy. This is All a Lie opens with Ray leaving his mistress for the final time. At the bottom of her apartment tower, he answers his phone. It’s Nancy, his lover, and she is threatening to jump if he drives away. She wants emotional truth in an arena where everything is a lie. She wants a reason to stay alive and Ray is uniquely unqualified to give her what she wants.
Ray’s wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray’s messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside.
What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray?
The answers lie within, perhaps.
Ray’s wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray’s messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside.
What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray?
The answers lie within, perhaps.
320 pages, Paperback
Published October 2, 2017
3 people are currently reading
193 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Trofimuk
11 books49 followers• As a writer, he’s published poetry, short-fiction, and novels.
• His first novel, The 52nd Poem, explores the remnants of a love affair as a man sends a poem a week to his lover over the period of a year. The book went on to win a few awards including the 2003 Alberta Novel of the Year and the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
• A second novel, Doubting Yourself to the Bone, is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and has received high praise from critics – including being named as one of the top 100 must read books for 2006 by the Globe & Mail.
• In 2009, Thomas’ third novel, Waiting for Columbus, burst onto the international stage, with a Canadian (McClelland & Stewart) and US (Knopf-Doubleday) release. In 2010, the book was released in the UK (Picador), and was published in Serbia, Brazil, Poland, China, and Quebec. The book was also released as an audio book. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club (UK) pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade.
• Waiting for Columbus has been optioned for film. Rumours are swirling right now about the possibility of Nicholas Cage playing “Columbus” in the movie.
• This is All a Lie, his fourth (published) novel, gathered stellar reviews across Canada, including a starred review in Quill & Quire, and being named as a top 100 book of 2017 in the National Post.
• Trofimuk is a founding father of Edmonton’s Raving Poets movement, which was an open-stage poetry event held in a bar, with the poets backed up by the Raving Poets Band. He played piano (badly but with gusto) in the Raving Poets band.
• He is a frequent teacher at YouthWrite (http://www.youthwrite.com/), a camp for kids who love to write, and he sits on the board of the YouthWrite Society Canada.
• He also irregularly blogs on his website: “Writer, Gardener, Failed Buddhist.” (www.thomastrofimuk.com)
• Trofimuk has recently taken up kayaking. He loves maps, and charts. He really likes new sheets. He’s a huge fan of single malt whisky. He has been known to smoke cigars. If you offer him wine, he’ll very likely accept.
• He was a “dance dad,” which means he knows more about dance than he ever thought he’d know, and he did a lot of driving back and forth from Shelly’s Dance Studio. He has grown to love dance, and in fact, there’s a dancer in the latest novel, called The Elephant on Karlův Bridge.
• The Elephant on Karlův Bridge, set in Prague, Czech Republic, in which a five-ton African elephant is one of the main characters, is slated for an August 15, 2022 release.
Here's a short and sweet version:
Thomas Trofimuk is a writer of poetry and fiction. He’s published in literary magazines across the country, and on CBC radio. His first novel, The 52nd Poem won the George Bugnet Novel of the Year Award and the City of Edmonton Book Prize at the 2003 Alberta Book Awards. His second novel, the critically acclaimed Doubting Yourself to the Bone, was named as one of the Globe and Mail’s top 100 must-read books for 2006. His third book, Waiting for Columbus, was released in August 2009 in the US, Canada, the UK, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, China and Quebec. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade. A fourth novel, This is All a Lie was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. The Elephant on Karlův Bridge is set to be released Aug, 2022. Thomas writes on a regular basis for his own website; “writer, gardener, failed Buddhist” at www.thomastrofimuk.com. He lives (and writes) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• His first novel, The 52nd Poem, explores the remnants of a love affair as a man sends a poem a week to his lover over the period of a year. The book went on to win a few awards including the 2003 Alberta Novel of the Year and the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
• A second novel, Doubting Yourself to the Bone, is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and has received high praise from critics – including being named as one of the top 100 must read books for 2006 by the Globe & Mail.
• In 2009, Thomas’ third novel, Waiting for Columbus, burst onto the international stage, with a Canadian (McClelland & Stewart) and US (Knopf-Doubleday) release. In 2010, the book was released in the UK (Picador), and was published in Serbia, Brazil, Poland, China, and Quebec. The book was also released as an audio book. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club (UK) pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade.
• Waiting for Columbus has been optioned for film. Rumours are swirling right now about the possibility of Nicholas Cage playing “Columbus” in the movie.
• This is All a Lie, his fourth (published) novel, gathered stellar reviews across Canada, including a starred review in Quill & Quire, and being named as a top 100 book of 2017 in the National Post.
• Trofimuk is a founding father of Edmonton’s Raving Poets movement, which was an open-stage poetry event held in a bar, with the poets backed up by the Raving Poets Band. He played piano (badly but with gusto) in the Raving Poets band.
• He is a frequent teacher at YouthWrite (http://www.youthwrite.com/), a camp for kids who love to write, and he sits on the board of the YouthWrite Society Canada.
• He also irregularly blogs on his website: “Writer, Gardener, Failed Buddhist.” (www.thomastrofimuk.com)
• Trofimuk has recently taken up kayaking. He loves maps, and charts. He really likes new sheets. He’s a huge fan of single malt whisky. He has been known to smoke cigars. If you offer him wine, he’ll very likely accept.
• He was a “dance dad,” which means he knows more about dance than he ever thought he’d know, and he did a lot of driving back and forth from Shelly’s Dance Studio. He has grown to love dance, and in fact, there’s a dancer in the latest novel, called The Elephant on Karlův Bridge.
• The Elephant on Karlův Bridge, set in Prague, Czech Republic, in which a five-ton African elephant is one of the main characters, is slated for an August 15, 2022 release.
Here's a short and sweet version:
Thomas Trofimuk is a writer of poetry and fiction. He’s published in literary magazines across the country, and on CBC radio. His first novel, The 52nd Poem won the George Bugnet Novel of the Year Award and the City of Edmonton Book Prize at the 2003 Alberta Book Awards. His second novel, the critically acclaimed Doubting Yourself to the Bone, was named as one of the Globe and Mail’s top 100 must-read books for 2006. His third book, Waiting for Columbus, was released in August 2009 in the US, Canada, the UK, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, China and Quebec. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade. A fourth novel, This is All a Lie was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. The Elephant on Karlův Bridge is set to be released Aug, 2022. Thomas writes on a regular basis for his own website; “writer, gardener, failed Buddhist” at www.thomastrofimuk.com. He lives (and writes) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 16, 2018
This book is full of twists and turns and authorial intrusions. In some ways, very modern and experimental. And yet in others, it feels very nineteenth century. A classic adultery plot. I happened to be reading Anna Karenina for the first time, and can't help but see the similarities. A very intriguing read.
"Ray closes his eyes. He can hear the wind moving in the leaves of the elms--the hushing sound that could be the ocean. He envies the wind. It moves through the upper branches and beyond. It is barely concerned with gravity. It touches what it wants to touch, when it wants--and then it's gone. It moves beyond here."
April 5, 2018
Three lives, one unreliable narrator and the consequences of losing intimacy. This is All a Lie opens with Ray leaving his mistress for the final time. At the bottom of her apartment tower, he answers his phone. It’s Nancy, his lover, and she is threatening to jump if he drives away. She wants emotional truth in an arena where everything is a lie. She wants a reason to stay alive and Ray is uniquely unqualified to give her what she wants.
Ray’s wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray’s messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside.
What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray?
The answers lie within, perhaps.
Ray’s wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray’s messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside.
What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray?
The answers lie within, perhaps.
December 16, 2017
Trofimuk has gleefully mixed up this book. He has placed the epilogue and the acknowledgements near the beginning. The pages run backwards. The chapter numbers sometimes come up at half increments. And instead of just mentioning the typeface, he describes elements of it’s designer’s life in vivid detail. Yet in all this mess, readers get an insight to the emotional relationships that encompass Ray and Tulah. Trofimuk has stirred up a mess of a narrative here but he has given a glimpse to the human condition of relationships.
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pacifictranquility.wordpress.com/2017...
May 9, 2019
Really enjoyed this book and finished it on the beach on vacation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews