I Will Be Complete

From the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a big-hearted memoir told in three parts: about growing up in the wake of the destructive choices of an extremely unconventional mother.

“Extraordinary ... An audacious, boundary-shattering work.” —Los Angeles Times

Glen David Gold’s earliest memories are of a childhood in which he had everything he could possibly want. But when his father’s fortune disappeared and his parents divorced, Gold fell out of his well-curated Southern California life. He was now growing up by the side of his increasingly erratic mother, among con men and get-rich schemes in ‘70s San Francisco.

Gold brings all his gifts as a novelist to a kaleidoscope of his most formative experiences: his salvation at boarding school; his dream job at an independent bookstore; a punk rock riot; a romance with a femme fatale; the start of his writing career; and his estrangement from his mother, who moved in with her soul mate, a man who threatened to kill her. By turns heartbreaking and disarmingly funny, I Will Be Complete is one son’s journey, a series of love stories layered into a search for autonomy, and, ultimately, a way of letting go.

GLEN DAVID GOLD is the author of Sunnyside and Carter Beats the Devil, which has been translated into fourteen languages. His short stories and essays have appeared in McSweeney's, Playboy, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in Los Angeles.