Truth and Lies

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Tamara Williams’s experience as a high-school teacher is clearly
evident in Truth and Lies, as she authentically re-creates the social
mosaic found in contemporary schools.

In her graduating year, Oshawa Secondary’s Erin Martin, an art
student who aspires to go to Ontario College of Art and Design, has been
dating Jon Abbey, a hockey-playing tech-stream student, for the past six
months. The book’s action is precipitated by the school’s
announcement that Marcel Lemieux, Erin’s longtime gay friend, has been
hospitalized and is in a coma following a brutal beating. Erin
determines that she “[will] find out who ... attacked Marcel and they
[will] pay for their crime.”

As in all strong mysteries, Williams provides a goodly number of
suspects, including groups like the Skinheads or neo-Nazis. Suspicion
even falls on Jesse, the new boyfriend of Erin’s best friend, Amy.
Jesse, a fundamentalist Christian, suggests that Marcel’s being beaten
may be “God’s way of punishing him” because “he’s a freak of
nature.” While solving the crime, with its homophobic elements, alone
makes the book an interesting read, what Williams reveals about the
potentially negative aspects of some opposite-sex relationships adds a
further, most worthy dimension. Both Erin and Amy are in relationships
in which their thoughts and actions are being tightly circumscribed by
their controlling boyfriends. Only when the two girls accept the hard
truth that their romantic relationships are built on a series of
lies—which cause them to deny their true selves—can they move on.

This short, quick read for young adults is recommended.