Review: The Trouble with the Truth by Edna Robinson

Set in the 1930s, this poignant, funny, and utterly original novel tells the American story of one lost girl's struggle for truth, identity, and understanding amidst her family's nomadic, unconventional lifestyle.

What's the right way to behave, to think, to feel, if you're always the new girl? How do you navigate life when you're continually on the move? Do you lie? How do you even know if you're lying? What's the truth anyway?

It's 1928 and nine-year-old Lucresse Briard is trying to make sense of life and the jumbled, often challenging family it's handed her: a single art-dealer father who thinks nothing of moving from place to place; her brother, Ben, who succeeds in any situation and seems destined for stardom; and their houseman, Fred, who acts like an old woman. As Lucresse advances through childhood to adolescence, she goes from telling wild lies for attention to desperately seeking the truth of who she is as a sophistication-craving teenager in the 1930s.

Told from Lucresse's perspective as a grown woman, The Trouble with the Truth transcends its time in the late 1920s and '30s, and weaves the story we all live of struggling to learn who we are and the truth behind this human journey.

Paperback, 224 pages

Expected publication: February 10th 2015 by Infinite Words 

Genre: Historical Fiction/Coming of Age

Kristine's Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy from Atria Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

The Trouble with the Truth is most definitely a coming of age story. I find that there is a fine line with this type of story. Sometimes they can be beautiful but sometimes they run the risk of being quite dull. Unfortunately this one leans towards the dull and boring side. Although the writing was fine, the story and the characters just didn't pull me in the way I had hoped. In fact, I wasn't a fan of Lucresse at all. She was whiny and immature throughout the entire story. She seemed no older at the end of the story than she was at the beginning and quite a few years past throughout the pages. I just didn't care what her outcome would be. Normally there is character growth in a coming of age story but I just couldn't see any.

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me and I will likely not remember it in a weeks time.

About the Author

Edna Robinson (1921–1990) was an author, copywriter, comedy writer, and horse enthusiast whose writing appeared in Sports Illustrated. Her short story, “The Trouble with the Truth,” was first published in the 1959 edition of the New World Writing series and selected as one of the “most exciting and original” stories of its time by the editors. The story has now been expanded into a novel of the same name, edited by her daughter Betsy. For more information, go to BetsyRobinson-writer.com.  

Website/Goodreads