About the Author

Jessica Lamb-Shapiro has published fiction and non-fiction in The Believer, McSweeney's, Open City, and Index magazine, among others. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in New York City and Columbia County, NY.

Reviews

"Promise Land is not only a raucous, engaging account of all the hope, despair, faith, fear, falsity, and truth that comprises America's centuries-old obsession with self-improvement. It is also a deeply felt personal story about family, secrecy, and grief. Read it and you might just find yourself improved."--Daniel Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

"Here are two important self-help rules. Buy this book. Read this book. You'll feel better about yourself and the world. Promise Land is funny but not sneering. It's poignant but not maudlin. It's smart but not pretentious. This is gazpacho for the soul, which I much prefer to chicken soup."--A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of Drop Dead Healthy

"I can't think of a nonfiction writer since David Foster Wallace as adept at pivoting from slapstick linguistic virtuosity to whip smart analysis to incomprehensible pathos--at times, all within the same paragraph! The druids of our contemporary self-help culture will need to write a new 'Chicken Soup' book to soothe their own souls if they accidentally read Jessica Lamb-Shapiro's epic, hilarious Promise Land. Everyone else will just be delighted."--Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be