JDCMustReadBooks

By Edna Robinson
ISBN: 9781593096403
Publisher: Atria Books/ Infinite Words
Publication Date: 2/10/2015
Format: Other
My Rating: 3 Stars

A special thank you to Betsy, the author's daughter and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The charming part of TROUBLE WITH THE TRUTH, is more so about the inspiration behind the book and its author. If you are unaware, Author Edna Robinson (1921–1990) is the mother of Betsy, editor of the book, as she shares a little of her mother’s stories—her mother’s 1957 novel; retyped and edited to an unknown world of digital readers. One Edna called “a fantasy.”

Betsy, the daughter notes the book demonstrates how ordinary and even amusing this struggle of to feel visible really is. A special book for her personally since it took fifty years to be published, and it would not go away, similar to her mom, Edna.

In this whimsical and quirky book, a series of short chapters, reading like a collection of short stories, is set in 1930's, about one lost little girl’s struggle with her identity, as she is part of an unconventional and nontraditional family of misfits.

Lucresse, now a grown woman, is telling the story of her youth starting when she was nine years old, in 1928. As most, they are not dirt poor as many during this era. Her mother is deceased and her single father is an art dealer who moves all around the place, dragging Lucresse and brother, Ben (seems to always transition easily), and of course the houseman, Fred (he takes care of everything, like an old woman, a housekeeper, manager, and nanny). Her only relative was Aunt Catherine Tippet.

The dad, Walter is crazy and eccentric. When Jen, their mom died, their aunt would have liked to have declared the father unfit, but did not want to ruin her sister’s name. From birth in 1921 to the first nine years, the parents lived in twenty different places. They did not marry until he was fifty-two and her forty-six, which is odd for this time period.

As the stories move along, Lucresse found if she made up things it was easier than the truth and she could be who she wanted to be. It seemed they were always explaining their odd life and people in this era were of course very judgmental, so the name Trouble with the Truth. A comical and quirky book, “People can only tell the truth as they see it. And everyone sees it differently.”