I Know You Know Who I Am - by Peter Kispert (Paperback)

About the Book

"In the linked and tightly thematic stories [in this collection], Kispert explores deception, performance, and the uneasiness of reconciling a queer identity with the wider world, with characters who try to navigate that dissonance by acting like another person for someone else"--

Book Synopsis

AN ELLE MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE MUST-READ LGBTQ BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN ELECTRIC LIT BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF THE YEAR
A GRINDR QUEER BOOK OF THE YEAR
A THE ADVOCATE LGBT+ Book You Absolutely Need to Read

"Riveting... Every lie reveals itself so exquisitely that the parallels become an added pleasure, as soon as we uncover the ways they diverge." --New York Times Book Review

"Dazzling. Here is a confident, psychologically astute new writer with a bold new vision." --Garrard Conley, New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased

Throughout this striking debut collection we meet characters who have lied, who have sometimes created elaborate falsehoods, and who now must cope with the way that those deceptions eat at the very fabric of their lives and relationships. In the title story, the narrator, desperate to save a love affair on the rocks, hires an actor to play a friend he invented in order to seem less lonely, after his boyfriend catches on to his compulsion for lying and demands to know this friend is real; in "Aim for the Heart," a man's lies about a hunting habit leave him with an unexpected deer carcass and the need to parse unsettling high school memories; in "Rorschach," a theater producer runs a show in which death row inmates are crucified in an on-stage rendering of the New Testament, while being haunted daily by an unrequited love and nightly by ghosts of his own creation.

In I Know You Know Who I Am, Kispert deftly explores deception and performance, the uneasiness of reconciling a queer identity with the wider world, and creates a sympathetic, often darkly humorous, portrait of characters searching for paths to intimacy.

Review Quotes

"[A] wryly scathing debut." --O, The Oprah Magazine

"In this debut collection, Peter Kispert takes a clever premise--stories about liars--and spins an extraordinary tapestry... In stories that are by turns blackly comic, speculative, romantic, and wistful, Kispert toys with the ideas of personal truth, deception (of self and other), and lies from so many angles that, taken as a whole, the collection wows with its insight, daring, and breadth of talent."
--Elle.com, "12 Best Books of 2020 So Far"

"Kispert's stories have remarkable range, but are all anchored by lithe and lucid prose compelling the reader to become complicit in these very human dramas."
--OprahMag.com

"Striking... [I Know You Know Who I Am is] about how one slips into dishonesty in relationships and in coming to terms with oneself, the stories reveal through these lies, the truth about us all." --Salon

"Piercing... this lively and provocative work crisply reflects the challenges of modern love." --Publishers Weekly

"Kispert blends sharp characterization with intriguing premises throughout this memorable collection." --Kirkus (starred)

"Kispert's short fiction is a performative lie that reveals truth to readers in subtle, surprising ways that literary fiction lovers will devour... [these] stories dig deep, and they're far from forgettable." --Booklist (starred)

"Kispert runs the gamut, oscillating between dystopic horror and giving the reader André Aciman-levels of feels, yet each story is connected -- a powerful two-in-one tool that is transparent as much as it is reflective." --PAPER Magazine

"In his debut story collection, Peter Kispert exhibits a cool, sharp style and a finely attuned ear for spare-but-telling dialogue... Might there be a flash of your own reflection in these stories' glimmer and sting?" --Passport Magazine

"I Know You Know Who I Am presents a kaleidoscope of deception... They seem like perfect stories for this interior moment: a deep dive into what motivates the myths individuals create and what they reveal about the queer experience and the human condition." --Fiction Writers Review

"Right from the first line, Peter Kispert's fiction grabs your interest and refuses to let go... Kispert impressively crafts well-developed, affecting stories that are full of depth and sharp prose. Readers will find themselves savoring each one." --The Writer Magazine

"In spite of these characters' indubitable violations of moral conduct, I couldn't help but fall in love. The tenderness with which Kispert portrays the liars left me rooting for them, hoping against all hope that they wouldn't destroy themselves, that this time they would get things right." --F(r)iction

"This debut collection has a wisdom and a tapestry of language far beyond the author's years. Loosely linked unreliable narrators remind us that we might find religion in the most unlikely places -- such as the space between a truth and a lie." --Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things

"Engrossing, unsettling, full of characters in search of their place in the world, I Know You Know Who I Am reminds me in the best possible way of the debut collections of Mary Gaitskill and Adam Haslett, in tone and talent and the promise of what will come next." --David Ebershoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife

"This book is a beautiful Russian Nesting Doll: to try, to know, to understand. In these pages, intimacy is often a weapon, a drug, and a salve. Astonishingly tense and terrifically crafted, Kispert's collection is not only a work of art, it's a work of true tenderness." --Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things

"Sometimes you read a collection and you wonder how a mere mortal wrote it because the language is so pure, the depth of emotion so profound... A tour de force: read this book." --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer and Sweet & Low

"Cuts right to the bone with startling observation: we obfuscate because to be seen, truly seen, is to risk everything. And yet, this remarkably assured collection leaves it all on the page with startling honesty for us - the reader - to see." --Steven Rowley, bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor

"If I could give the characters in Peter Kispert's expansive, funny, and moving collection the forgiveness and recognition they seek, I would do so whole-heartedly. These unforgettable stories look head on at the spectacles we make of our lives and the impossibility of turning away from them." --Danielle Lazarin, author of Back Talk

"Lashed by years and bound by love, the liars in this incredible debut punish themselves as their compulsions and betrayals tremble across time. Cut crosswise, their lives show these pathologies at work, just as hard and irradiating, superheated and sad, as the prose in which they're rendered. Above all, it is Kispert's immense talent that we come to understand, and even love, who they are." --Patrick Nathan, author of Some Hell

"A darkly hilarious, astute collection that comes to us at the perfect time, where the truth and intimacy feel more elusive than ever." --John Paul Brammer, creator of the advice column ¡Hola Papi!

"A sharp collection of stories about the ways we deceive ourselves and others. Kispert absolutely nails the anxieties particular to contemporary queer life in a range of modes, from the melancholy to the hilarious. It has all the hallmarks of a modern classic." --Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life, in The Strategist

About the Author

Peter Kispert is the author of the debut story collection I Know You Know Who I Am (Penguin Books, 2020). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Story, Sewanee Review, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. He lives in New York.