What would it be like to live a lie? Every day. What would you lose if you lived your truth? What about the ones you love? This is the subject in author Lisa Montanaro’s debut novel, “Everything We Thought Was True”—a love letter to her family.
Lena Antinori is an LA civil rights attorney. She fiercely fights discrimination, especially involving the LGBTQ community. But she has a secret she’d rather stay buried.
When Lena was thirteen, she discovered her father, Frank, was gay, and her mother, Teresa, knew. She didn’t understand how that could be. Then, years later, when her parents divorced, her mother refused to acknowledge Frank’s sexual orientation. To protect their Italian Catholic family, Teresa insisted she, Lena, and Lena’s brother, Anthony, keep the truth a secret.
Her father regrets that to free himself, he had to hurt the ones he loved the most.
Now, Frank plans to marry his partner, and he’s asked Lena to plan the wedding. She thought she’d made peace with her dad’s truth years ago, but she learns she
still has unresolved feelings about the shame and fear that plagued her family, and she’s not sure how she’ll get through it.
Adding a layer of realism, Montanaro writes from her personal experiences. Beautifully written and poignantly descriptive of the pain of betrayal, confusion, fear, and being stuck in the middle, Montanaro’s message is simple: everyone deserves to live their best life, but sometimes it comes with a price. Buy it here.
