Deep Secrets (A Titanic Novel)
Nineteen-year-old Colette Laurent has led a sheltered life in 1920s Greenwich Village. She spends her days indoors while her mother and two siblings go off to work. At home, she sketches and reads—but only novels. Maman doesn’t allow in any news of the outside world. She justifies her overprotectiveness by claiming Colette was a sickly child whose health must be protected. Colette’s only escape is her weekly grocery-shopping trip. The shopkeeper, Walter, has become a father figure to Colette, whose own father died in a factory accident when she was two … or so Maman says.
When the stock market crashes, Colette secretly takes a job at Walter’s store to help pay off her family’s debt to him. As they work, Walter tells Colette how he came to America aboard the HMS Titanic seventeen years earlier. His stories trigger a dream Colette has had frequently throughout her life, and she begins to wonder if it’s more than a dream. Eventually, he reveals a truth that upends Colette’s entire life and sense of identity.
The novel struggles to find its niche. While intended for middle-grade readers, the book’s youngest character is Colette’s sixteen-year-old brother. Colette’s age and her blossoming relationship with fellow shop assistant Claude make the book more suitable for young adults. Finally, the lies Maman has told Colette all her life are psychologically abusive. Though Smith attempts to raise sympathy for Maman’s perspective, readers are left with the message that lying is acceptable if the truth is scary. Younger readers interested in the Titanic would be better served looking elsewhere.
