The Lies They Told
Ellen Marie Wiseman examines eugenics through two intertwining stories. One thread follows Lena, a young single mother with an infant daughter and German immigrant, who travels to the United States in 1928 with her brother Enzo and their Mutti. At Ellis Island, government protocol designates Enzo feebleminded due to his poor English, and he’s returned to Germany with Mutti, who is deemed too old and sick to enter America.
The second thread tells of Silas and his nine-to-ten-year-olds, Bonnie and Jack Henry, living high in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. Losing his wife has turned Silas hard and difficult, and he displays little emotion other than reprimands to his children for speaking of their mother. Both kids are hardscrabble born, yet capable and wise beyond their years, but Silas wants a surrogate mother and housekeeper and takes in immigrant Lena. Her adjustment to life (language, dialect, culture, customs) is complex in many ways. Bonnie is particularly standoffish, but Lena’s baby, Ella, bridges the divide, facilitating friendship and love. If and when law enforcement or the government shows up, the children know what to do.
Wiseman’s novel is an unsettling, emotionally devastating story of a tragedy, resonant even today with its examination of eugenics and how that featured in the displacement of hundreds of Blue Ridge families to create the Shenandoah National Park. Historical fiction often challenges its readers, but this one really touched a nerve for me. The author is so right—it’s one thing to know about something, quite another to have hardcopy evidence on your desk. The U.S. was the leader in the eugenics movement, and the Nazis studied American theories for their policies. Wiseman reveals many other disturbing things arising from her research. If parent-child separation, forced sterilization, and/or incarceration in asylums are triggering, this is probably not the book for you. It’s a heartbreaking read, but I celebrate the author for her courage in tackling it.
