All the Secrets of the World - by Steve Almond (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"The scorpion hunts while the rest of us dream. That's why he knows all the secrets of the world."

It's 1981 in Sacramento, and 13-year-old Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for the science fair by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different worlds. The unlikely friendship they form will draw their families into a web of secrets and lies, one that sends Lorena on an unforgiving odyssey through the desert, past the gates of a religious cult in Mexico, and into the dark heart of America's criminal justice system.

A sweeping social novel, All the Secrets of the World introduces readers to a cast of indelible characters while illuminating the moment in our national history when the call for law and order became the dominant force within our public life. For fans of both Little Fires Everywhere and Breaking Bad, Steve Almond's long-awaited debut novel is a propulsive tour de force--the sheer scope, moral complexities, and piercing insights mark a writer at the height of his powers.

Review Quotes

"I devoured All the Secrets of the World in a couple of big, greedy bites. It is at once a media critique, a coming-of-age story, a meticulously plotted police procedural, an exploration of racial paranoia, and a haunting account of lust and longing on the fringes of what is allowable. Most of all, it's a deeply compassionate book that shows how policies can trickle down into the lives of individuals and strip them of their humanity." --Anthony Doerr, author of Cloud Cuckoo Land and All the Light We Cannot See

"Steve Almond is a fierce talent--a writer who possesses both a deep heart and a sharp edge. His work shimmers with intelligence and simmers with eroticism. He's got the goods." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls

"With one unexpected twist after another, Steve Almond pulls you into this wild and engrossing novel about family, scorpions, and the rules of attraction. In All the Secrets of the World he shrewdly dissects the social and emotional landscape of 1980s California and creates a true page-turner." --Héctor Tobar, author of The Last Great Road Bum

"Almond, a master of the short form, has now set himself loose on a vast canvas, giving us a rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel--part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious. This book is sharp, fast-moving, juicy . . . a wild ride and a great deal of fun." --Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers

Praise for Steve Almond

"Almond's language is rendered in precise strokes, void of bland modernist generalities, with metaphors so original and spot-on that they read like epiphanies." --San Francisco Chronicle

"A gifted storyteller, Almond hooks you on the first page and keeps the thrills coming." --People

"Steve Almond is one of our finest literary provocateurs. His stories are without equal in their beautiful terrible honesty." --Junot Diaz

"[Almond's work] will make you grateful--for wit, for self-effacing humor, for joyful obsessiveness, for the precise and loving use of language to crack open and celebrate our oddness--in short, for a writer as funny and big-hearted as Steve Almond." --George Saunders

"Mr. Almond . . . is a shifty cornerback of a writer: rangy, sarcastic, offbeat. And every once in a while, he'll blindside you with a big hit." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times

About the Author

Steve Almond is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. He teaches Creative Writing at the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and Wesleyan, as well as Hugo House, Grub Street, and numerous literary conferences. His essays and reviews have been widely published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, Poets & Writers, Tin House, and Ploughshares. His journalism has received numerous awards including the top national prize for feature writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. His short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, Best American Mysteries, Best American Erotica, and The Pushcart Prize. He serves as a literary correspondent for WBUR and appears on numerous podcasts. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.