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William Giraldi

Biography

William Giraldi

William Giraldi is author of the novels BUSY MONSTERS, HOLD THE DARK (a Netflix feature film) and ABOUT FACE, the memoir THE HERO'S BODY, and a collection of literary criticism, AMERICAN AUDACITY (all published by W. W. Norton). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and is Master Lecturer in the Writing Program at Boston University.

William Giraldi

Books by William Giraldi

About Face
by William Giraldi - Fiction, Humor

Val Face is a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face. Assigned to write a profile of Face during his much-hyped New England tour, 30-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon sucked into the mystic’s vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face’s many protectors. Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers, danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker who wants Face dead.

The Hero's Body: A Memoir
by William Giraldi - Memoir, Nonfiction

At just 47 years old, William Giraldi’s father was killed in a horrific motorcycle crash while racing on a country road. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated his family, provides the pulse for THE HERO’S BODY. In the tradition of Andre Dubus III’s TOWNIE, this is a deep-seeing investigation into two generations of men from the working-class town of Manville, New Jersey, including Giraldi’s own forays into obsessive bodybuilding as a teenager desperate to be worthy of his family’s pitiless, exacting codes of manhood.