The Truth in a Lie is Jan Turk Petrie's sixth novel and the first in a contemporary setting. It is an engaging story of complex interpersonal relationships..husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters; a story of love and loss, expertly told with sensitivity and real emotional depth.
The reader follows Charlotte, Lottie, through a particularly difficult time in her life. After divorcing Duncan, we join the story when she leaves her partner, Michael, and has to adjust to being alone again, though sometimes with the company of Kate, her university student daughter. Her life is rocked again when her mother is taken seriously ill and has to undergo emergency surgery. The reappearance of Duncan at the hospital and her mother's insistence that her private papers will be destroyed unread, set the scene for an unexpected outcome, clearly demonstrating the devastating consequences that secrecy can have.
The novel is very well-written with fully developed characterisations and evocative accounts, so much so that the reader feels that they know the people, places and feelings described. Indeed, the strength of the writing is that most people will have experienced something very similar and will be able to identify completely. A highly recommended read.
Drena Irish, A LoveReading Ambassador
LOVEREADING AMBASSADOR
Even before you have finished reading the opening chapter of The Truth in a Lie by Jan Turk Petrie, you know you have discovered a skilled creative writer. It takes well-honed writing talent to quickly arouse reader interest in something as ordinary as moving residences and to hint, through carefully created dialogue, at the as-yet-undisclosed reasons for strain in two relationships: that between lovers and that between a mother and daughter. Carefully chosen words and phrases that focus on showing rather than telling us about the key areas of plot, characterization, mood, and setting are all established in Chapter One, and we are curious to learn more about what hasn’t yet been revealed e.g. why Charlotte, the protagonist, bottles up so much of what she’s feeling; why her daughter, Kate, seems hell-bent on doing things differently from her mother; why Lottie and Michael have split up and, intriguingly, why Duncan, Lottie’s now-remarried ex, is suddenly back in her life when her mother is on her death-bed.
Under the strain of watching her mother die, bit by bit Lottie reveals to us the truth behind the lies. As she does, though the plot details may be different from what happens in our own lives, readers will recognize themselves as Jan Turk Petrie gets into the guts of human psyches, motivations, actions, and consequences. I can’t tell you how many times I stopped, quietly laughed, and thought, “Yep...that’s exactly what I would say or how I would feel.” When an author does that for me, has made me connect so closely with her fictional characters, she is one superb writer. According to Petrie’s bio, The Truth in a Lie is quite a departure from her previous genres. She is a huge fan of Margaret Atwood. So am I. Like Atwood, Petrie doesn’t rely on super-hero characters pulling off amazing feats. Petrie’s characters are ordinary people living ordinary lives but we can’t forget them because they are so like us. The Truth in a Lie is top literary fiction: characters matter more than plot. The novel’s power lies in its simplicity, and it’s wonderful!
