Reseña del libro "This Much is True (en Inglés)"
A woman’s locked-away trauma is forced forward by an unfortunate future in-law in Katherine A. Sherbrooke’s devastating novel This Much Is True.
Forty years past the day she fled her affluent Illinois town, abandoning high school with it, Veronica has carved out a beautiful life: her husband and sons run a much-lauded oyster farm and restaurant, while her daughter, Mara, rises in the art world. Veronica finds additional fulfillment as a veterinary technician, saving animals in the capacity that she can without an advanced degree. Her family’s slice of the Massachusetts shoreline feels idyllic—until Mara’s fiancé’s parents come in from California, and Veronica recognizes in his father a buried horror from her teenage years.
Over one pivotal weekend, wrenching misunderstandings ensue between Veronica, who clings to her silence, and Mara, who mistakes her mother’s love and protection for stifling. Veronica, rent by the knowledge that the wild career success of her attacker came at her own expense, has a theoretical conversation about secrecy versus disclosure with her attacker’s wife, Belinda, who runs a respected survivor’s organization. And Veronica at last allows herself to rename the offense she only named once before: She was raped. Her decision about what to do with that knowledge represents a reclamation of the agency that was stolen from her.
A biting, healing retelling of the Sixteen Candles assault story from the perspective of the mocked and discarded homecoming queen, the novel does an incisive job of reckoning with rape culture in its multigenerational manifestations. Both Mara and Veronica work to heal from their respective assaults in their own ways, only thinking to disclose to, and lean on, one another years later; Veronica wonders to her safer future in-law what benefits there are to ever coming forward. And just as it celebrates historical truth-tellers including Christine Blasey Ford, the book exalts the interpersonal kindnesses that heal hurt hearts, including care for animals, love for one’s family, and support for fellow survivors. Veronica’s final, triumphant decision has rippling effects, and the book’s delayed reckoning is satisfying.
This Much Is True is a powerful novel about unspoken wounds and different means of pursuing justice.
