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Table of Contents
About The Book
The Long family’s love was fierce, their lifestyle bizarre, and their deceptions countless. Once her parents were gone, Amanda Uhle realized she was closer to them than anyone else, yet she found herself utterly confounded by the lives they had led.
Amanda’s striving fashion designer mother and her charismatic wheeler-dealer father wove a complex life together that spanned ten different homes across five states over forty perplexing years. Throughout her childhood, as her mother’s hoarding disorder flourished and her father’s schemes crumbled, contradictions abounded. They bartered for dental surgery and drove their massive Lincoln Town Car to the food bank. When financial ruin struck, they abandoned their repossessed mansion for humble parish housing, and Amanda’s father became a preacher. They swung between being filthy rich and dirt poor, devious and virtuous, lonely and loved, fake and real.
In Destroy This House, Amanda sets out to document her parents’ unbelievable exploits and her own hard-won escape into independence. With humor and tenderness, Uhle has crafted a heartfelt and utterly unique memoir, capturing the raucousness, pain, joy, and ultimately, the boundless love that exists between all parents and children.
Product Details
- Publisher: S&S/Summit Books (August 26, 2025)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668083444
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Raves and Reviews
“In her vivid and bracing debut, journalist Amanda Uhle turns her investigative skills inward, peeling back the layers of deception that shaped her childhood. Blending sharp inquiry with personal insight, she confronts the half-truths of her past, unraveling the tangled web of her parents’ grifts. Destroy This House is a wonderfully evocative exploration of family secrets and the ways they shaped this writer’s life.”
– Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of WILD GAME: My Mother, Her Love, and Me
“Confessional, vulnerable, honest, and scintillating. I loved every word.”
– Hannah Pittard, author of If You Love It, Let It Kill You
“A fantastically entertaining tale of the most endearing grifters ever committed to print—who happen to be the author’s parents.”
– Isaac Fitzgerald, author of DIRTBAG, MASSACHUSETTS
“Amanda Uhle’s extraordinary memoir does what so few do, combining absolutely jaw-dropping material with the writerly skill to make it sing. I wanted to reread it immediately. It is a stunning debut you will recommend to everyone you know.”
– Jennifer Traig, author of DEVIL IN THE DETAILS: SCENE
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High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Destroy This House Hardcover 9781668083444
- Author Photo (jpg): Amanda Uhle Photograph © Melanie Maxwell(0.1 MB)
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