BIG LOCAL LIES
22 AUGUST 2 0 1 7
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
Former Astoria resident Jen Waite lived
this story, and now, she’s sharing it with
others: her memoir, “A Beautiful, Terrible
Thing,” was released by an imprint of Penguin
Random House on July 11. It’s been
compared to fictional thrillers “Gone Girl”
by Gillian Flynn and “Big Little Lies” by Liane
Moriarty — in Waite’s memoir, much
like in these popular novels, lies and secrets
hide behind fairy tale lives.
“A Beautiful, Terrible Thing” is structured
like a thriller novel, too, alternating
between “before” sections that read like
a love story and “after” sections that are
more of a nightmare.
And much of it takes place right here in
Astoria.
Waite moved to New York City right after
college and spent a couple years moving
from neighborhood to neighborhood
before landing in Astoria in 2009.
What if you were living
a seemingly perfect
life in Astoria, with an
amazing husband and
a 3-week-old baby,
when you found out
that your husband was
living a double life?
What if, as betrayal
after betrayal came to
light, you discovered
the unthinkable:
your husband fit the
textbook definition of a
psychopath?
By KATRINA MEDOFF
katrina@boromag.com
@KATRINAMEDOFF
@KATYA_M22
Photo by Katrina Medoff
