Bialosky, Jill

Jill Bialosky is the author of six collections of poetry, three novels, and two memoirs, including The New York Times bestseller History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Best American Poetry; The New Yorker; The Atlantic; Harper’s Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; and The Paris Review, among other publications. She is also an executive editor and vice president at W. W. Norton & Company. The life of the unnamed narrator in The Deceptions (Counterpoint) is unraveling. Her only child has left home, her 20-year marriage is strained, and the release of her book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire, and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During those hours in its austere galleries, memories of a yearlong friendship with a fellow poet haunt her. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the gods assume remarkably vivid lives, forcing her to choose between reality and myth. The Deceptions is a seductively told exploration of female sexuality and ambition, and a human drama that dares to test the stories we tell ourselves.