This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew

In this powerful memoir, the bestselling author of Big Fish tries to come to terms with the life and death of his multi-talented longtime friend and brother-in-law, who had been his biggest hero and inspiration, in a poignant, lyrical, and moving memoir.

If we're lucky, we all encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own. For Daniel Wallace, that was his longtime friend and brother-in-law, William Nealy. Seemingly perfect, impossibly cool, William was James Dean, Clint Eastwood, and MacGyver all rolled into one: an acclaimed outdoorsman, a famous cartoonist, an accomplished author, a master of all he undertook. William was the ideal that Daniel sought to emulate, and the person who gave him the courage to become a writer.

But when William took his own life at age forty-eight, Daniel's heartbreak led him to commit a grievous act of his own, a betrayal that brought him down a path into the tortured recesses of William's past. Eventually a new picture emerged of a man with too many secrets and too much shame to bear.

With his first memoir, bestselling author of Big Fish Daniel Wallace delivers a stunning book that is as innovative and emotionally resonant as his novels. Part love story, part true crime, part desperate search for the self, This Isn't Going to End Well tells an intimate and moving story of what happens when we realize our heroes are human.

Author: Daniel Wallace
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 03/26/2024
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9781643755793
ISBN10: 164375579X
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Memoirs
- Family & Relationships | Death, Grief, Bereavement
- Biography & Autobiography | Entertainment & Performing Arts

About the Author

Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels, including Big Fish, which was adapted and released as a movie and a Broadway musical. His novels have been translated into over three-dozen languages. His essays and interviews have been published in The Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun, Poets & Writers and Our State magazine, where he was, for a short time, the barbecue critic. His short stories have appeared in over fifty magazines and periodicals. He was awarded the Harper Lee Award, given to a nationally recognized Alabama writer who has made a significant lifelong contribution to Alabama letters. He was inducted into the Alabama Literary Hall of Fame in 2022. He is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.