Wally Lamb
AUTHOR

Wally Lamb

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Wally Lamb’s first two novels, She’s Come Undone (Simon and Schuster, 1992) and I Know This Much Is True (HarperCollins, 1998), were # 1 New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and featured titles of Oprah’s Book Club. I Know This Much Is True was a Book of the Month Club main selection and the June 1999 featured selection of the Bertelsman Book Club, the national book club of Germany. Between them, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True have been translated into eighteen languages. In 2021, I Know This Much Is True was adapted as a six-episode HBO series starring Mark Ruffalo.

Wally Lamb’s next three novels were also NY Times bestsellers. The Hour I First Believed (HarperCollins, 2008) explores chaos theory by interfacing several generations of a fictional Connecticut family with such nonfictional American events as the Civil War, the Columbine High School shootings, the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina. Wishin’ and Hopin’ (HarperCollins, 2009) takes a comedic look at the year 1964 through the eyes of Felix Funicello, a parochial school fifth grader and a distant cousin of the iconic Annette. Wishin’ and Hopin’ became a Lifetime TV Christmas movie in 2014. Lamb’s fifth novel, We Are Water (HarperCollins, 2013), is an intricate, multi-voiced account of a New England family coming to terms with the past and one another during the first years of the Obama presidency. His latest novel, The River is Waiting (Simon & Schuster/ Marysue Rucci Books) is the propulsive story of a young father who, after an unbearable tragedy, reckons with the possibility of atonement for the unforgivable. Oprah featured The River is Waiting as her June 2025 Book Club selection.

Wally Lamb is also the editor of the nonfiction anthologies Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (Harper Collins/Regan Books, 2003) and I’ll Fly Away (Harper Collins, 2007), collections of autobiographical essays which evolved from a writing workshop Lamb facilitated at Connecticut’s York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison for women. He served as a Connecticut Department of Corrections volunteer at York from 1999 to 2019.

Wally Lamb has said of his fiction, “Although my characters’ lives don’t much resemble my own, what we share is that we are imperfect people seeking to become better people. I write fiction so that I can move beyond the boundaries and limitations of my own experiences and better understand the lives of others.

Wally and his wife Christine met when they were high school freshmen and have been married for nearly 50 years. They have three sons and five grandchildren.

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The River Is Waiting (Oprah's Book Club)

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