Review
Loved it!
A tension-filled historical novel of the Deep South, with characters to love, family relationships, corruption, and the legacy of slavery. - Rachel Deeming
I have to admit that novels based in the Deep South of America always hold a fascination for me as they evoke, usually, deep seated tensions that remain from a divisive history. With that in mind, The Truth Together is typical as there is racism and prejudice here, it being set mainly at the start of the twentieth century, when segregation was prevalent.
Rodgers' book brings this period alive by taking this tense climate and the potential for these prejudices to be conquered, and centering her book on a real life family, the Herndons of Atlanta, Georgia, using their lives and her imagining of those lives as a frame for her narrative. In the process, she has created a truly unique story that I thoroughly enjoyed.
This novel is very well-written and told from different character viewpoints. The author chooses to have their stories told in a non-linear way, which could make the novel a difficult read but it is not; in fact, quite the opposite as I found it very easy to follow and read and became fully immersed in the story. There are many stories contained in this novel and Rodgers does well to ensure that they interweave in a way that is seamless. Her characters are well-drawn and the personalities of all the main people of the book are distinctive and brought alive through lively and realistic dialogue and their actions during the book.
A really good read.
I envision book clubs eagerly devouring your novel and it inciting rich discussions about identity, treatment of the mentally ill, and the shadows of the country's racial history that we still walk in today. - Alyssa Matesic, editor
I marveled at the way you brought to life the fascinating and little-known history of the Herndon family. On top of your expert portrayal of these real-life figures and the broader details of the time period, you've managed to make a complex story structure - spanning decades and 5+ points of view - feel seamlessly interwoven, with no character's storyline feeling out of place or extraneous.
The Truth Together is a rich, layered historical novel exploring family secrets spanning generations. Rodgers has a keen eye for period detail and a masterful ear for dialogue--a fine debut!
Effie Herndon hopes to establish herself as a nurse at Georgia's state sanitarium. But as an African American woman living and working in the Jim Crow South of the 1920s, she must contend with racist administrators who belittle her skills, deny adequate care to patients, and, most disturbingly, shrug off crimes and violence at the sanitarium, including the murder of several women. Together with Fern, a white sanitarium resident, Effie seeks to identify the perpetrators. Little do she and Fern know that their quest will also provide answers to questions both women have long asked about their families' histories. —David Krugler, author of The Dead Don't Bleed and Rip the Angels from Heaven.
About the Author
I'm a history teacher and storytelling is what I do. Georgia is my home and I love her stories, especially those that have not been shared broadly outside a small circle of people fortunate enough to have heard them. Those are the stories I want to tell you.
