True Story: A Novel

"A "mind-blowing, page-turning, unputdownable" novel (Elif Batuman) about the fifteen-year fallout from a poisonous high school rumor, exploring how stories from the past can come to define who we are.

A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories.

But she is haunted by the one story she cannot tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep." Back in 1999, Nick Brothers and his high school lacrosse team return for their senior year in a well-to-do Baltimore suburb as the reigning state champs.

The afterglow of their big win is bound to last until graduation; not even the pressure of college applications can get in the way of their fun.

But when a private school girl attempts suicide in the wake of one of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor begins to circulate that two of Nick's teammates sexually assaulted her, it seems like it might ruin