The Telling of Lies

Al Stray is manager of the Port Credit Public Library.

Telling of Lies is on one hand a murder mystery and on the other a story of the friendship of four women nurtured over a lifetime of summers. Set on the coast of Maine in the summer of 1986, the plot centres around the death of an aged wealthy businessman who collected enemies.

On a late afternoon in July, one of “blinding sunlight and almost morbid heat,” Calder Maddox died on the beach in front of the white clapboard Aurora Sands Hotel. The events surrounding this are recorded in the form of diary entries by 59-year-old Vanessa Van Horne, Findley’s protagonist.

Vanessa is drawn into the mystery initially by her cousin’s husband, a doctor who suspects that like the iceberg offshore there is more to Calder’s death than meets the eye. Her interest — and ours — is maintained by the kidnapping of one of her friends by government agents, the out-of-character actions of another friend, and the unusual activity up the beach at Larson’s Neck.

Findley lets us get to know Vanessa through her writing which includes flashbacks to a Japanese POW camp in Java. Like the author’s earlier novel The Wars, the reader is given a taste of the tragedy and senselessness that results.

Through Timothy Findley’s vivid use of language, we are there. He uses words the way Vanessa uses her camera. And though set in New England, Canadians figure prominently in the plot. Indeed the motive for murder is based on a real-life incident that happened in Montreal.

As the plot unfolds, Vanessa finds it necessary to use deception and lies to counter her adversaries. It even comes to the point where she has to accept the telling of lies to protect her best friend.

The Telling of Lies is more than an entertaining novel; Findley leaves us with much to think about regarding good and evil, right and wrong.