What is Lee Irby reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lee Irby, author of Unreliable.

His entry begins:

I’m reading a massive study of the Gulf of Mexico, entitled The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by Jack E. Davis because (1) he is one of my best friends and an incredible historian and (2) this work is monumentally important and explores a subject we think we know but really don’t, the Gulf of Mexico. I’m surrounded by this body of water and yet I understood little of its unique history. Davis has a way of taking a topic and finding the most compelling way to examine it--often through personal stories, but he has also mastered the ecology, geology, and biology of the entire Gulf coast, from South Padre to Key West. He is just as conversant about the mound-building Calusa as he is...[read on]

About Unreliable, from the publisher:

Riotous and riveting, this is the story of a charming college professor who most definitely did not—but maybe did—kill his ex-wife. Or someone else. Or no one. Irby plays with the thriller trope in unimaginably clever ways.

Edwin Stith, a failed novelist and college writing instructor in upstate New York, is returning home for the weekend to Richmond, Virginia, to celebrate his mother’s wedding—to a much younger man. Edwin has a peculiar relationship with the truth. He is a liar who is brutally honest. He may or may not be sleeping with his students, he may or may not be getting fired, and he may or may not have killed his ex-wife, a lover, and his brand-new stepsister.

Stith’s dysfunctional homecoming leads him deep into a morass of long-gestating secrets and dangers, of old-flames still burning strong and new passions ready to consume everything he holds dear. But family dysfunction is only eclipsed by Edwin’s own, leading to profound suspense and utter hilarity. Lee Irby has crafted a sizzling modern classic of dark urges, lies, and secrets that harks back to the unsettling obsessions of Edgar Allan Poe—with a masterful ending that will have you thinking for days.

Learn more about Unreliable.

My Book, The Movie: Unreliable.

The Page 69 Test: Unreliable.

Writers Read: Lee Irby.

--Marshal Zeringue