All True Not a Lie in It
​(Knopf Canada February 2015, Ecco USA August 2016)

Knopf Canada's New Face of Fiction pick
Winner of the amazon.ca First Novel Award
Winner of the BC Book Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
A Globe and Mail Best Book
A National Post Best Book
Told in his inimitable, haunting voice, All True Not a Lie in It hinges on Daniel Boone’s captivity by the Shawnee during the Revolutionary War, after the kidnapping and rescue of one child and the murder of another.

Alix Hawley fleshes out this one-dimensional folk hero so that we penetrate deep within his psyche: the charismatic frontiersman; the husband who struggled to mollify his wife, whom he frequently abandoned with their children while he wandered eighteenth-century America, or dragged with him while cutting a trail through the wilderness that hundreds of thousands would eventually follow; and the loving father whose actions led directly to the torture and murder of his son.

All True Not a Lie in It is a brilliant first novel, replete with storytelling that is taut and expert, descriptions that are rich and intense, and prose that is full of feeling, especially about Daniel's love and longing. Alix Hawley has masterfully imagined the experience of settling America through the eyes and the heart of one of its most famous settlers.

Read an excerpt published in The Walrus
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Praise for All True Not a Lie in It

Alix Hawley has really done a number on an American folk hero. With vivid imagery and a strong, dreamlike voice, she confidently strips away the myth of Daniel Boone to reveal the strange, pulsing man underneath. It is a remarkable feat and a remarkable book.”
—TRACY CHEVALIER, author of Last Runaway and Girl with a Pearl Earring

"Alix Hawley has written a boldly original, mysterious, and provocative novel—the demythologizing of an American icon and his reinvention as a figure of poetic luminosity.  She is Cormac McCarthy’s young heiress, with a light and forgiving heart."
--JOYCE CAROL OATES, author of Lovely, Dark, Deep and The Accursed

"A stunning debut that will stand the test of time. Hawley's book is a deep dive into the character and mindset of one of the most legendary figures of the American Frontier. Though it is accurate down to the smallest detail—every page reads as shimmeringly, intensely real—the novel wears its historical mantle lightly. It is stylistically and psychologically brilliant, truly a great novel." 
—PHILIPP MEYER, author of The Son

"This rich and wonderful novel imagines us so deeply into the mind of Daniel Boone that the stuff of his legend--the explorations, the conquests, the super-athlete woodsman feats--seem almost incidental to the soul-twisting trajectory of his intimate life.  Family, love and loss, the longing for home, the intensity with which Boone lived these dramas help to explain the superhuman drive of this man, and Alix Hawley brilliantly renders every aspect of his story."
--BEN FOUNTAIN, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

“An extraordinary feat of backwoods ventriloquism, carried off with great flair and conviction, across the boundaries of custom, time and gender. Alix Hawley invests afresh in the voice of Daniel Boone and his tough familiars, bringing shock and sensuality, but also surprising tenderness, to the famously rugged frontier myth.”
—RICHARD HOLMES, author of The Age of Wonder

"Hawley's marvelous book shines light on a figure that has become more legend than man, sharing an intimate and raw portrayal of Boone that rings true."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Questions of honor, ownership and conquest are posed with a sensitivity that departs strikingly from the rugged posturing often associated with Boone’s story. Throughout, Hawley is careful not to allow contemporary mores to color this often surprisingly tranquil and original portrait of an individual who loomed large in our nation’s rapacious westward expansion.”
--THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Hawley’s daring and stylish re-imagining of the legend of Daniel Boone marks this debut writer—and winner of the Amazon.ca First Novel Award—as a definite up-and-comer."
--NATIONAL POST Best Books of 2015 citation

"This fictional portrait of legendary American explorer Daniel Boone was a deserving winner of this year’s Amazon.ca First Novel Award . . . with All True, Hawley truly arrived."
--GLOBE AND MAIL Best Books of 2015 citation

"All True Not A Lie In It is a remarkable act of literary ventriloquism. Alix Hawley fully inhabits the character of Daniel Boone, creating a novel that is richly detailed, beautifully written, and intensely moving."
--HELEN HUMPHREYS, judge, Amazon First Novel Award

“A book of great sympathy and sadness. Hawley’s intimate version of Daniel Boone is a wonderful character, intelligent and self-aware, even if he can’t stop himself from being himself.”
--NICK MOUNT, head judge, Amazon First Novel Award

"The world [Boone] describes, full of squalor and natural beauty and blood, is richly detailed, and the dialogue sharp and well-trimmed."
--KIRKUS REVIEWS
Hawley’s ability to convey the menace of paradise is overwhelming, as well as her ability to make the reader share in the sorrows of her hero."
--NATIONAL POST

​"Thrilling."
—CBC BOOKS

​"Hawley's Boone is a hero for these times, and All True Not a Lie In It is a powerful reminder of the fact behind the legend, of how fiction can arrive at fundamental, troubling human truths. The manner in which the book ends . . . leaves one almost breathless for the sequel, which Hawley is apparently currently writing. It can't come soon enough."
--VANCOUVER SUN

"Hawley masterfully creates both a dreamlike world and a fearful fantasy . . . The book’s magic . . .  is in Hawley’s treatment of Boone’s inner life. All True Not a Lie In It . . . may come closer to disclosing  the 'real' Daniel Boone than those who originally manufactured and perpetuated his myth."
--QUILL AND QUIRE

"Getting inside Boone’s head is fascinating, especially when it comes to the complicated yet still devoted love with Rebecca. Their love story is enthralling, fresh, and above all, natural."
--THE ABSOLUTE MAGAZINE

"[E]mbodies a genius balance between myth and the all too human."
--THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT

“All True Not a Lie in It moves with surety and grace through legends and landscapes trod by more than a few major artists. Watching Alix Hawley negotiate this challenging terrain, via Daniel Boone, of all American stories, is a serious literary thrill. An audacious debut.”
—CHARLES FORAN, author of Planet Lolita and Mordecai: The Life and Times

“Alix Hawley's debut novel is audacious and bold, like an early Ondaatje, with writing that is luscious, lyrical, and bloodthirsty. Like Hawley's narrator, Daniel Boone, All True Not a Lie in It, constantly seeks out new ground, wrapping the reader in a landscape of language and dream.”
—ALEXI ZENTNER, author of Touch and The Lobster Kings

"Alix Hawley's resurrection of the great woodsman, Daniel Boone, is astonishingly, uncannily vivid. Lightly stitched to the sparse historical record, this is not a picture of the frontier itself so much as the restless spirits of exploration, love, memory, and greed that drove Boone--"the white Indian"--west through the wilderness. His voice cracks like a musket shot across these pages--brave, confused, and yearning--and Hawley's close, dream-like perspective lends a hallucinatory aspect to her prose, as if we are looking out Boone's eyes at those lost landscapes and faces. An amazing debut."
—REGINA MARLER, author of Bloombury Pie and Queer Beats

“I fell in love with Alix Hawley’s Daniel Boone, a man drawn to the beating heart of the wild landscape that stretches beyond his known world, and who risks recklessly to preserve his freedom.” 
—FRANCES GREENSLADE, author of Shelter

"[A]tmospheric and beautifully written yet whimsical and episodic . . . retains an insistent allure."
--TORONTO STAR

"Alix Hawley's brilliant first novel is an exceptional example of the historical novel. Exquisitely written, with a wonderful sense of place and dialogue . . .  Let us hope this is the first of many fine novels from Hawley . . .  I would certainly urge you to read her story of Daniel Boone."
--WATERLOO RECORD

"There's enough sex, adventure, love, betrayal, infidelity, war, violence and money to keep most readers captivated."
--BC BOOK WORLD