The concept of lying is at the heart of Peter Kispert's debut short story collection, I Know You Know Who I Am. It was the object of much fanfare even before it was published in mid-February.
In Kispert's collection, each story centers around a lie that a character has told. In some cases it's a lie that was told in a split second, but in some cases, these lies have been carried around for months, sometimes years. How they handle these lies and convince others of their truthfulness poses an interesting dilemma for many of the characters in these stories.
The one story in this collection I was completely enamored was the title story, which opens the book. In this one, a man, desperate to prove to his lover that he was a likable person with friends, hires someone to portray a friend whom he invented. Will the scheme work or will his lie be discovered? It's a taut, funny, slightly bittersweet story and Kispert did such a great job hooking me from the first few sentences.
Unfortunately, for some reason, none of the other stories made me feel this way. Some of the stories are a page or two, so they were over before I was able to ascertain what they were about, while others I fully understood yet they seemed to hold me at some emotional distance, and I almost felt like I was reading them through some gauzy filter. Each story seemed to hint at something big but then never got there.
I'm a big fan of short stories and I eagerly anticipated this collection, but it fell really short for me. I tried reading it over a few different days in case it was my mood or external factors that were distracting me, but each time my feelings were the same. I've seen others give this a phenomenal review, so I'd definitely encourage you to read this and not be dissuaded by my reaction.
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