In this unexpectedly funny and genre-bending look at a marriage gone wrong, Hannah Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of unforgettable conversations, beginning with the one in which she discovers her husband has been having sex with her best friend. These fast-paced exchanges are provocative, intimate, and often jaw-dropping in their willingness to reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. Sometimes re-creating dialogue with extreme accuracy and other times diving headlong into pure speculation, Pittard turns her idiosyncratic eye on a tale as old as time. She takes innovative stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal struggles they connect with—from the depths of female rage to the heartbreaking ways we inevitably outgrow certain people.
“Hannah Pittard’s We Are Too Many is a truly lacerating exploration of the betrayals that make a marriage. The book is a dagger-like dialogue between husband and wife, wife and best friend, but ultimately the conversation is between Hannah’s selves – some of them self-destructive, some despairing, some hopeful – who must rebuild. We Are Too Many will leave you stunned and tender.”
Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
“In We Are Too Many, Hannah Pittard collects heartbreaking, revealing, and complex shards of conversation and snapshot memories in an effort to piece together a swiftly-moving, stripped-raw story of a marriage and friendship gone awry. A boldly-rendered and honestly-told memoir that’s as innovative as it is engrossing.”
Rachel Yoder, author of NIGHTBITCH
“With its heartbreaking and hilariously fast-paced dialogue and its unique self awareness, Pittard’s new book is an extraordinary journey into the private life of one of our best writers.”
Ada Limón, Poet Laureate of the United States
“I read We Are Too Many all in a rush, so wrapped up in the drama and brilliant reflection Pittard makes of that drama, that the world around me dropped away. Written with a fresh, empowered use of all the registers creative nonfiction offers, this memoir is a passionate recounting of the complex joys and terrors of marriage and friendship.”
CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife: A Memoir-in-Essays
“Pittard is hilarious, inciting, heartbreaking and enlightening, often all on the same page. We Are Too Many is a brilliant, soul-stirring, and utterly original investigation of marriage, friendship, and life.”
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop
“We Are Too Many is an astonishingly intimate curation of conversations recalled in the wake of bruising infidelity. It is also a devastating account of the demons that trip up so many of us, especially writers―our bodies and our appetites, our windfalls and our debts, our fear of abandonment and our lust for experience. Most beautifully, however, this is a book about forgiveness―not so much forgiving those fools who trespass against us―but rather looking clearly at our past selves and forgiving our own selves for our flaws, our delusions, and our incessant, keening, wonderfully human need for love.”
Dean Bakopoulos, author of Summerlong
“A truly unique investigation of what happens when two people who love each other get married and then lose sight of themselves.”
Adam Ross, author of Mr. Peanut
“Reading We Are Too Many is like encountering a new, previously unknown animal. Part memoir, part reconstructed conversations, part speculative conversations, part historical conjecture, these fractured elements intertwine and coalesce into a stunning portrait of a crumbling marriage and the ultimate betrayal by a best friend.”
Rob Spillman, author of All Tomorrow’s Parties
“I opened this book at the beauty parlor and two chapters in started hand-selling it to strangers. Hannah Pittard’s memoir is her best book yet. It is raw, daring, honest, and fair. Reading it―the real life twists and turns written by a woman scorned and reborn at the top of her game―I rooted for her: 'Go, Hannah, go!'”
Helen Ellis, author of Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light
“I love the way this story was structured. I enjoyed how it explored the imperfect ways we perceive our own experiences, as well as the importance of how we communicate in relationships.”
Bob Lingle, Good Neighbor Bookstore, Lakewood, NY
“Simply outstanding—compelling, honest, and real. So well constructed and brilliantly told that it made me want to read everything Hannah Pittard ever wrote, immediately.”
Emilie Sommer, East City Bookshop, Washington, DC
“Bold and inventive… Pittard’s frankness stings, and the stripped down format makes this all the more potent. A powerhouse.”
Publishers WEekly
