This 50-story compilation spanning The Moth's history (more than 15 years and more than 10,000 stories) highlights how personal narrative and the illumination of truth have turned this popular radio show and live performance program into an institution. Like each episode, the book offers a dizzying array of revelations, from such established raconteurs as Adam Gopnik, Malcolm Gladwell and founder George Dawes Green, to novices spinning stories so elaborate they can only be true.
The Moth show is the brainchild of Green, who wanted to re-create the pure magic of storytelling he had experienced on the bourbon-soaked front porches of Georgia--the "full doses of character and loss and destiny" that sprang from the minds of mad talkers who could take over a room.
Where else will you read about an astrophysicist's lovechild born with his organs on the wrong side; a monkey in a neurological experiment who goes on a hunger strike; a chemotherapy patient who deals with cancer by figuring out if she is a wig or a scarf person? "DMC" of RUN-DMC relates how a song by Sarah McLachlan and writing a children's book saved him from suicide; a Nobel Prize–winning geneticist reveals that his parents were his grandparents and his mother actually his sister; a part-time actress tells how she became the "second favorite girlfriend" of the Prince of Brunei.
You'll find such tales nowhere else, which is the beauty of The Moth. By presenting a collection of confessions, it becomes apparent how unusual and distinct each experience is--as only the truth can be. --Christopher Priest, marketing manager, Shelf Awareness