This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew

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His work has been published in over two dozen languages, and his stories, novels and non-fiction essays are taught in high schools and colleges throughout this country. His illustrations have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Italian Vanity Fair, and many other magazines and books, including Pep Talks, Warnings, and Screeds: Indispensible Wisdom and Cautionary Advice for Writers, by George Singleton, and Adventures in Pen Land: One Writer's Journey from Inklings to Ink, by Marianne Gingher. Big Fish was made into a motion picture of the same name by Tim Burton in 2003, a film in which the author plays the part of a professor at Auburn University.

In THIS ISN’T GOING TO END WELL, Daniel Wallace (BIG FISH) scours his memory, letters, and William’s journal to make sense of something senseless, in the process learning about parts of William that were secreted under layers of defenses. The result is a searing, beautiful memoir about the author and the larger-than-life character who influenced him so greatly. It’s a vulnerable and revealing portrait of male friendship and the complicated mix of grief and anger that coexist after a loved one dies by suicide. The man was unbelievably cool, standing on the roof about to jump into the Wallace family’s swimming pool. Such an act was dangerous, forbidden, but utterly breathtaking. Later, Daniel learned he was William Nealy, his older sister’s latest boyfriend. While "This Isn't Going to End Well" feels like a series of essays that are all supposed to be about Wallace's brother-in-law, William Nealy, they are as much about Wallace, his obsession with Nealy, and some seemingly un-self-aware observations. When an individual suggested early on that they would not participate in an interview to add to the author's advancement, I didn't see any flag but now wonder. How is it acceptable to take a deceased individual's journals and use them as a prop for the latter half of your book when you've already decided that he was unworthy because he committed suicide and left your sister in need? Perhaps there's a revelation near the end. Or perhaps not.There's elements of a number of different styles of story here: the building dread of horror, with enough hints of what's to come, both direct and indirect, that we feel the need to keep marching to the inevitable and sad conclusion; a bit of mystery and murder (which comes as something of a surprise, the murder at least, and gives us some layers of mystery to contend with); memoir and biography both, via the author's personal connection with the subject who is in fact a fascinating and somewhat notable subject; and folklore, which Wallace has always done so well A memoir wrapped in an elegy… [that] maps a strangely stunning life… [Wallace] imbues this chronicle with tremendous compassion — for William, for everyone. This Isn’t Going to End Well gives off the particular radiance of a life lived hard, whatever as such, a brand of American bildungsroman. There’s deep satisfaction to its arc, despite its inherent sadness — a wondrous glimpse of the melding, in human doings, of fate, character and serendipity.”― Washington Post There’s a moment halfway through “This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew” when the author, Daniel Wallace, ponders how, a few centuries ago, society viewed suicide as a criminal act, a murder of the self. The dead person’s body might therefore be hanged, burned or dragged through the street as punishment. Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman. Mr. Wallace’s older sister, Holly, had just died, at the age of 56, felled by the arthritis she’d endured since she was 21. It’d been 10 years since the suicide of William, Holly’s husband. William was also Mr. Wallace’s role model growing up, the “ringmaster” of his world, a guy he idolized to the point of wanting to copy “the literal shapes of the letters he made.” Now, recalls Mr. Wallace, “I despised him for breaking my already broken sister, for abandoning her, my family, me.” Overwhelmed by love, betrayal, grief and suffering, Mr. Wallace considered the harsh justice of earlier societies. “Now,” he writes, “I understood why.”

But when William took his own life at age forty eight, Daniel’s heartbreak led him to commit a grievous act of his own, a betrayal that took him down a path into the tortured recesses of William’s past. Eventually a new picture emerged of a man with too many secrets and too much shame to bear.I'm a little miffed I broke my streak of all-female authors in 2023 for this. It's tough to think of this as a memoir, because Wallace only speaks of himself in relationship to William (his brother-in-law whose suicide is the impetus for this book). An it's also tough to think of this as a biography of William, because the coverage of his life is so spotty. Like, did he and Wallace's sister Holly ever get married? I thought they had, but sometimes it seemed like they hadn't. Wouldn't it have been better to make that clear, and to include a wedding scene, if there was one? Holly was Daniel's sister and William's soulmate. Holly and Nealy were a pair, like a cup and a saucer. She suffered from debilitating arthritis, and he was her hero, her caregiver, her lover. Nealy saw what was troubling everyone else, but evidently no one saw what was really troubling him. Was he ultimately left to drift alone? This book honors William's memory, including his search for justice for his friend Edgar. It is written with so much warmth and honesty, that it cannot fail to touch your heart as you learn what possibly led to his untimely death. Tenderly written by a man who loved him, was influenced by him, and perhaps shaped by him, the book brings to life this fallen hero that few recognized as someone also in need. He did not reveal his own troubled, private thoughts, but instead created an external persona which was that of a brave man of many talents who could do anything he set his mind to do. His brief life had a tragic ending instead of a hero’s welcome because he lived a double life, one private and one public. William Nealy was the older brother-in-law everyone dreamed of…the one who taught you and praised you and raised you up, while others dragged you down. Older and wiser, he was the quintessential clone of “The Fonz”, everyone’s beloved thug. He was a major character in the memory of my life, since I grew up in the approximate time in which "Happy Days" was set. Fonzie was not really a thug, but he looked and acted like one to survive. William was a real life Fonzie to Daniel. He was his hero. He gave him strength when he was weak, support when he felt abandoned. He was his teacher and his friend. Daniel wanted to be like him, but not to be him. Daniel tries to answer the question, who was Nealy really? Did anyone know? He tries to identify and honor him, to solve the puzzle that was William Nealy, and to discover why he took his own life when he had so much talent, so much success and was appreciated and thought of as a gift to so many. Why, when he seemed to have so much to live for, did he not want to live? So often we go into a book experience with expectations. In this case, after reading that Daniel Wallace wrote the novel which was the basis for a movie I adored, "Big Fish," I presumed, rightly or wrongly, that I would equally adore his writing. I don't know, the whole book kind of felt like Wallace saying, "Man, William was sure a character. And he sure did die by suicide. Nuts, huh??" Any time Wallace tries to psychoanalyze the dead man, it falls flat for me.