Review: The Lies They Told

The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is definitely a book that I would highly recommend to book clubs. And make sure you read the author's notes at the back of the book. It shows how much research went into this book. It also makes my heart weep for those who went through all this and cry in anger for our government that allowed/encouraged such a thing.




Everything you need to know about this book is in the books recap. It took me three days to read this book, which should have only taken me one. Why? Because it was so historically horrifying that I had to keep regaining my equilibrium. This may seem like a depressing read, but it offers a crucial fictional/factual glimpse into the true story of Eugenics and its impact on the people of the Shenandoah Valley.

In this story, not only did our main character, Lena, and her daughter survive coming to America in steerage with her family, but she also lost her brother and mother to immigration restrictions. They had been deported.

This was a fantastic read that brought tears to my eyes and anger to my heart, but had a happy ending.






For more information, look up "Shenandoah Valley eugenics project" and https://irp.nih.gov/catalyst/29/4/unf...
https://www.nps.gov/shen/learn/histor...

*ARC supplied by the publisher, Kensington, the author, and NetGalley.

View all my reviews

DESCRIPTION : "In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for readers of Susan Meissner, Kristin Hannah, and Christina Baker Kline.

When Lena Conti—a young, unwed mother—sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported back to Germany. Now, alone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvation, she finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned.

Silas Wolfe, a widowed family relative, reluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the hills around Wolfe Hollow remind Lena of her homeland, she struggles to adjust. Worse, she is stunned to learn the children in her care have been taught to hide when the sheriff comes around. As Lena meets their neighbors, she realizes the community is vibrant and tight knit, but also senses growing unease. The State of Virginia is scheming to paint them as ignorant, immoral, and backwards so they can evict them from their land, seize children from parents, and deal with those possessing “inferior genes.”

After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena face impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughter—and protecting the people, and the land, she has grown to love."