Daniel Wallace (1) (1959–)

William Nealy appeared to be exactly the kind of person so many of us wish we could be. He was, it seemed, afraid of nothing. He was a talented artist who achieved a measure of fame. He was creative, bright, curious, and surrounded by friends and family who loved and admired him.
One of those who thought the world of William Nealy was his young brother-in-law, Daniel Wallace, whose book This Isn’t Going To End Well tells the story of a man he both knew well and who remained a mystery not show more just to Wallace but to everyone he knew.
When the two meet, William Nealy is poised high - on a roof, ready to jump into a swimming pool. When the story ends, Nealy is at the bottom of the world, alone and behind a building where he has just killed himself. How could it have happened that such man fell to such depths?
Wallace takes a thoughtful look at the man he thought he knew and discovers a complex person who lived with both great joy and terrible despair. Nealy loved his wife – Daniel’s sister Holly, who has debilitating arthritis – and is dedicated to taking care of her, but likely feels he failed her. Nealy also loves his close friend Edgar, who is found murdered; when Nealy cannot prove the guilt of the man he is convinced is the killer, he never seems to recover.
The author also considers the way in which Nealy has shaped his own life; who would Wallace be without this swashbuckling figure who can seemingly build anything from just a few scraps of wood and who regularly goes on “family picnics” with his wife and their farm animals and pets, who creates cartoon maps that are clever and educational and spectacularly fun?
Though Nealy himself may have been, in the end, unknowable, Wallace writes a book that gives readers insight into who he was and why he chose to die. Wallace also uses words like paint to show how difficult it is not only to know someone like William Nealy, but to completely understand ourselves, as well. Life is both beautiful and unknowable in its complexity, he seems to say.
Wallace is a terrific writer and this is an absolutely unforgettable book. show less

This isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew, by Daniel Wallace.
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. A major character in the 1960’s television show, Happy Days. Fonzie was not really a thug, but he looked and acted like one to survive. William was a real show more 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?
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.
Wallace’s easy writing style is easy to read. His real feeling for Nealy is palpable. The man he emulated, on the outside was rough-hewn, but on the inside, he was angel-smooth. He was gentle, helpful, and so very compassionate, but he was also dangerous, because he was an impulsive risk-taker. He abused drugs and alcohol. Overshadowing that was his sense of loyalty and his kindness. He sacrificed for others. He was talented and successful, and yet, he was not content. He died to soon, thinking he left no permanent mark. He may have believed he failed, but he was a heroic figure and lives on in the memory of those who knew him and in the work he left behind. show less

He was a hero, and he was a hero because he did heroic things, while beneath it all there was just that boy, dressed in a scout’s uniform covered in mud, and screaming.
from This Isn’t Gong to End Well by Daniel Wallace

The title tells you from the start: this is not a book with a happy ending. It begins with idealization of a friend, and takes us into scenes that are hard to read, and finally when the friend’s past and inner turmoil are exposed, it is downright painful.

Stories about show more mental anguish and the scars of trauma are never happy. And when the subject is someone loved and admired, a role model, the pain is deep.

Daniel Wallace’s book about his friend and brother-in-law William Nealy reminds us that people hide their deepest mental distress. They don’t talk about the most awful things that happen to them. you can see their struggle in their choices, self-destructive or self-hate acts, or the aspiration to prove their worth through sacrifice and risk. But we are, in the end, strangers to one another.

Wallace couldn’t stop trying to understand Nealy. After his suicide, after his sister’s death, he discovers Nealy’s journals. Private or not, he had to read them. And he discovers the man he never knew.

A shattering memoir that offers compassionate insight.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

In this masterful, if somewhat redundant, memoir, novelist Daniel Wallace remembers the man he admires most, his late brother-in-law William Nealy. In life William was many contradictory things—an adventurer, a caregiver, a cartoonist, a writer, an amateur detective, and a drug addict. His death by suicide leaves Wallace struggling to understand his brother-in-law’s dark side. This highly personal book is an attempt to come to terms with William’s choices and their impact on those who show more survived him, especially his disabled wife, Holly.

I had never heard of William Nealy or of the ten books he wrote, and I suspect most of the audience for this book hasn’t either. Wallace frequently reminds readers of William’s achievements, but there are times when the brother-in-law’s biography doesn’t seem substantial enough for a whole book. Wallace adds weight to the narrative by using it as a springboard to discussions of masculinity, emotions, and that ever-elusive thing, “coolness”. The writing is excellent. This book is well worth reading. show less