“Before my father passed away, he asked me point blank why I was so fascinated with the sixties and seventies era? “You weren’t even born then, until 1979. How do you know so much?” I never understood this myself, but I know today that what draws me to this time period is the fire in the hearts of the people. The mass protests against Vietnam, Woodstock, Women’s Liberation movements, Civil Rights and Black Power movements fueled a generation that had to be vocal and adamant about wanting change. And effective. And bold.
So, when Claire Arbogast’s If Not the Whole Truth came my way, I threw myself into this narrative wanting to immerse myself in something fresh. I am always craving, through fiction, an account of the truth. I find that this sort of storytelling is where the gold is hidden, the lived experiences that teach us about the past and explain the present. What I found in this novel was just that, through the eyes of a young protagonist Connie, who holds up for us the mirror of history for us to examine ourselves, our past actions and convictions.
When we meet Connie, she is fleeing the family home at just the right time. Her father, a conservative and patriarchal man set in his racist beliefs, is unbearable, and her mother is too caught up in a submissive marriage to stand up for her Connie or for herself. In this sense, Connie feels she’s being failed, and like many young folks her age, she feels the urge to choose her won path. She is hungry for more in a time where young men are being drafted to join the war efforts in Vietnam. What would be her place in history? Connie’s desire is to challenge the status quo, as she leaves her home and makes her way in the world, she joins her voice to the millions of others out there marching, protesting, integrating into parties and movements of changemaking. In their capacity, what should be their place? Connie has to decide, like many young people her age, whether to stand still and watch the world burn, or to demand a different world for her generation.
Connie, as it turns out, is the heroine we needed and the heroine we still need today. She gets involved where she can, hitchhiking her way through the country, from Indiana to California but ending in Chicago where passionate, relentless activists are lighting new fires. Through Connie, we learn in depth about the Weatherman or Weather Underground, the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords as she protests the war, marches with women, sells community newspapers and launches free clothing stores. And what a time to be alive, to do these things while being young, losing herself in love and psychedelic Jimmy Hendrix concerts. Connie sees her role as crucial, fighting in the trenches by joining protests, organizing clothing drives, even helping young draftees cross the border to escape the war in Vietnam.
Perhaps one of the most compelling parts of this novel for me, is Connie’s passion for the women’s liberation movement. As she follows her friends through crashpads and communes, I grew fonder and fonder of her as a protagonist who stays level-headed and aware enough to know what she wants for herself and how to be present for other women. Even as she gets involved with Carlos, a militant member of the Young Lords, or as she attends events and concerts where free love and recreational drugs abound, Connie is calculated and cognizant, and self-aware enough to stand in line for free birth control. She admires and follows tenants of her hero, Margaret Sanger, because Connie believes in bodily autonomy and practices it, taking readers along for a ride through the true narrative arc of women in the late sixties and early seventies, and their fight for their own reproductive rights. Through Connie, we get a fresh and hard look at the history of this country and its quiet yet aggressive war against women, and Claire Arbogast write brilliantly about the distortion of facts throughout the years that have led to confusion and misinformation.
In the wake of the Rove v. Wade reversals, If Not the Whole Truth is an important and necessary read for a nation that is now slipping backwards in time. This book reignites the fire and the passion in my heart for hope. As Huey P. Newton said, “the youth always inherit the revolution,” and as Claire Arbogast holds up this book as a mirror to what we were in the past, to what we still are and what we risk becoming, it also reflects the tenacity of the youth who today are demanding change.
I’m here for that, and all the characters who fight for justice and refused to be silenced. This is a book to be shared, and taught, and gifted. More importantly, this is a novel written out of necessity, and the author seeks through this engaging narrative, to rewrite false narratives and remind us of what is capable through resistance.”
“This is a great read. Part coming-of-age story, part historical bildungsroman, it captures the rhythms, textures, idealism, and contradictions of the 60s. At the heart of it is a nest of women’s relationships and the way women had to navigate sexism and the patriarchy both within the Movement and without during the 60s. The 21st century coda is a sobering meditation on the lingering, unplanned for after-effects of that most revolutionary of decades. This is a wonderful book to read, but especially a wonderful book for women to read together, and for mothers and daughters to read together. No easy answers here, but the questions are so very interesting, all within a wonderful page-turner of a novel.
“Historically rich, with …. searing contemporary relevance.”
OUR VERDICT: GET IT.
Let’s call Claire Arbogast’s intrepid new novel, If Not the Whole Truth, a modern Penelopiad. Yes, what if Penelope helmed an explosive, episodic, high-velocity adventure, through a contemporary looking glass, mirroring the Odyssey, a trek of discovery and recovery, flipped, yes, yet still very hip, compelling and compelled... Arbogast casts such a net with the added benefit of transporting that magic tapestry of language, of storytelling raveled and unraveled, along for the ride. If Not the Whole Truth is the whole thing, cut from the whole cloth of epic and tailored to fit the most intimate of human undertakings.
“[S]ense of scene and characterization is wonderful. … [I]ntriguing and, at times, captivating. …[W]anted more of the 2022 section…especially considering the importance of this … in light of the madness surrounding us today.
