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

Novelist Wallace (Big Fish) pays loving tribute to his late brother-in-law, William Nealy, in this deeply felt memoir. When Wallace was 13, his older sister brought her daredevil 20-year-old boyfriend home to meet the family. From that day, the two men formed a friendship that endured until Nealy’s suicide at age 48. “William was more alive than I was or would ever be. He flew, and I, who couldn’t, just watched,” Wallace writes of their dynamic. Throughout, he speaks admiringly of his brother-in-law’s “adventurous teenager” spirit, and how he led the author on kayaking trips, fossil hunts, and ill-advised jumps into his in-laws’ pool from the roof of their house. Various vignettes focus on Nealy’s connection to his family, as when he took a teenage Wallace to his first concert (Alice Cooper) or tenderly cared for Wallace’s sister when she was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis at age 21. Reading Nealy’s journals after his death, Wallace comes to understand the depths of his brother-in-law’s pain, calling the writings “the longest suicide note in the history of the world.” Punctuated by Nealy’s captivating line drawings, Wallace’s elegiac narrative shimmers with deep admiration for a man who always played by his own rules and stood by the people he loved. This will entrance readers from the first page. Agent: Jamie Chambliss and Steve Troya, Folio Literary Management. (Apr.)