Lies You Wanted to Hear
In this surprisingly effective debut novel (from a 67-year-old author), the story is told from two perspectives. Lucy and Matt meet on a blind date in 1979, and straight-arrow Matt, a police officer, is immediately smitten. Lucy is just coming off a bad breakup with Griffin, the love of her life who left her the day after she got an abortion at his insistence. She sees in Matt a reliable man who makes a nice contrast to her elusive ex. But as the two marry and have two children, their marriage is tested. Lucy suffers from a bout with postpartum depression and comes to resent Matt’s cheerful, capable parenting, fearing that she can never measure up to his standards. And that fear proves prophetic when Lucy embarks on an affair with her old boyfriend, eventually asking Matt for a divorce. He takes the kids, alters their identities, and spends years on the run as Lucy grieves for her lost children. Thomson lays out the moral complexities underlying acrimonious divorces, taking care to make each side credible, but Lucy’s plight will win the greater measure of sympathy. --Joanne Wilkinson