That's All I Know - by Elisa Levi (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Nineteen-year-old Little Lea lives in a rural town where life ends at the edge of the forest.

When a stranger loses his dog on the first day after the end of the world, Little Lea warns him not to follow it into the forest, that people who enter never come out. Over a shared joint, she tells him about the burning in her gut, winding a tale of loss, desire, and conspiracies.

Little Lea sees the world through backcountry eyes that distrust the outsiders who come but who also get to leave. When she isn't working at her mother's grocery store, she cares for her empty-headed younger sister, Nora, who only cries when she's in pain. Meanwhile, her friend Catalina does nothing but cry. Little Lea wants Javier to love her, and she doesn't want Marco, who leaves weed and his best potatoes on her doorstep. As the town prepares for their end-of-the-world festival, she faces her intensifying desire to leave, that burning that unsettles her life--she wants to be useful somewhere else, even if it means being unloved, unwanted, unable to return. That's all she knows.

In a formally ambitious sustained monologue meant to distract the man as the forest does its work, Elisa Levi's That's All I Know explores the toll of caring for those who cannot care for themselves, the fear of the unknown that anchors people to unfulfilling lives, and the bravery it takes to stop deceiving oneself, to give in to longing.

Review Quotes

"Much like the forest that surrounds the setting here, this is a novel capable of lethal shocks and bold transfigurations. An unconventional and memorable coming-of-age story."--Kirkus, starred review

"Every once in a while, there comes a novel that tears at the heartstrings and speaks to the soul."--Mike Maggio, Washington Independent Review of Books

"That's All I Know is an unconventional coming-of-age story that reminds one-time restless teenagers like myself that the places we're leaving might actually miss us."--Erik Buckingham, Condé Nast Traveler

"The end of the world is supposedly at hand and a young woman speaks from her home at the edge of a strange and menacing forest in Spain. Things are downright grim, and reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm too, although narrator Little Lea doesn't know in 2013 that her mayor's Mayan calendar-based predictions won't come true. At least not yet. For Lea's troubled family, they might as well have."--Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

"Levi's frank and acerbic prose works to the book's advantage, highlighting the story's absurd nature and brutal action. This eerie tale is worth a look."--Publishers Weekly

"An idiosyncratic, voice-driven atmosphere that is sure to interest fans of Graywolf's other translations."--The Millions

"Levi's control of Little Lea's voice is such that every moment of the narrator's ruminations is at turns touching, funny, and profound. At only 154 pages, the novel is slim, but a young woman's entire life to that point is contained within. I never wanted it to end, thus a second read in the same calendar year was required. . . . With That's All I Know, Levi makes a case to continue living, even if the world ends and goes on ending in its infinite, merciless ways."--Ben Lewellyn-Taylor, Colorado Review

"Lyrical and alarming, Elisa Levi's fabulistic novella That's All I Know unveils a small town's ominous goings-on. . . . A love-hungry girl confesses her innermost truths near the end of the world."--Michelle Anne Schingler, Foreword Reviews

"Elegant, sly, and enrapturing."--Catherine Lacey

"For much of That's All I Know . . . stuckness is the animating force of her life. But by her story's end . . . her contradictions have produced a stronger engagement with love and with life. That's All I Know is a brilliant feat of authorial control; Elisa Levi has created a devastating delight."--Maya Binyam

"That's All I Know is a trapped story so bare and still the reader can feel Lea's breath swirl as a marble does in a jar. Her desire to leave with her brain (her greatest asset), to free her older sister, to get laid, and to dance in the fresh air calls to mind those characters whose stomachs burn with life."--Nora Lange

"Levi's novel is funny and strange, quirky and heartbreaking, voice-driven and philosophical, magical and very real. As Little Lea tells her tale of family, home, and the end of the world, she cast a quiet spell over me. This is a story that reminded me of the bewitching power of storytelling itself."--Rebekah Bergman, author of The Museum of Human History

"I want more from literature than a story; I want a voice. And Elisa Levi has one full of strength and character."--Jesús Carrasco

"An incendiary text. . . . It will have you by the throat for a long time, eager to talk about it, to recommend it as essential reading."--Ángel Tijerín, Librería on the Road

About the Author

Elisa Levi is the author of a poetry collection and two novels. She specialized in playwriting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her short stories have been anthologized and she has translated several books from English to Spanish.

Christina MacSweeney is an award-winning literary translator of Latin American fiction, essays, poetry, and hybrid texts. She was granted the Sundial Literary Translation Award for her translation of Verónica Gerber Bicecci's The Company.