I went to Author Day at Harrison Library and it was awesome! I got to reconnect with one of my favorite author friends, Lisa Montanaro after having been to her book signing in May for her debut novel Everything We Thought Was True, meet a fellow bookstagrammer, Jen (@electric_bookaloo) and catch up with an old friend. I even won a raffle!
BOOKS & AUTHORS PICTURED Jessica Anya Blau – Shopgirls V.S. Kemanis Lisa Montanaro – Everything We Thought Was True Cleyvis Natera – The Grand Paloma Resort Cherry Lou Sy – Love Can’t Feed You Liv Constantine – Don’t Open Your Eyes Amity Gage – Heartwood Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau – The French Honeymoon Clémence Michallon – Our Last Resort Mariah Fredericks Alyson Richman – The Missing Pages Lauren Willig – The Girl From Greenwich Street John Beyer – Live A Little Better Susan Shapiro Barash – Estranged (author not pictured)
Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro is a dual timeline novel which is a heavily fictionalized story of her life. It is told in the 1970s and 80s by Teresa and Frank Antinori, and in 2015 by Lena, their adult daughter, a lawyer who dedicates her career to fighting discrimination.
When she is thirteen, Lena discovers that her father is gay, and that her mother knew. Now, Frank is set to marry his partner Oliver, and wants Lena to plan the wedding.
Ms. Montanaro’s gorgeous writing made my heart ache both for Teresa and Frank in their own ways. The novel is incredibly moving, heartbreaking, and beautiful.
I had the privilege of meeting the author. You can read the post I wrote about the event here. I highly recommend the historic and timely novel Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro. Oh, and a word of advice? Bring tissues!
Recently I had the privilege of going to an area library, where Lisa Montanaro, who used to live locally but moved to California in 2012, was promoting her novel with a book talk and signing. She was in conversation with Christine Adler, a local lady and former president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Ms. Montanaro’s book, Everything We Thought Was True, is a family drama, and a highly fictionalized version of her life. It is a dual timeline, being told in 2015 by Lena, the adult daughter of a gay father, and narrated by her parents Teresa and Frank in the 1970s and 80s.
Ms. Montanaro told us that, being first a nonfiction writer, she initially intended for this story to be a memoir, yet as she was interviewing her formerly closeted gay father, she wanted to change many parts of his story. She quickly realized that this project had to be a novel.
Through reading this book, she wants readers—especially young people—to “understand the history of the hard-won rights of the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone who has a secret and is healing from a trauma to realize that embracing the truth will set you free.”
Ms. Montanaro told us that Lena was the most difficult character to write as she is the most different from herself, and that Teresa is the heart of the novel. Frank was the easiest because she identified the most with him. She said that “Lena is still grappling with loyalty issues and that she’s still living in the closet that Frank came out of.”
Ms. Montanaro’s father is very proud of her book, and he’s very much like Frank because he’s Italian-American, marries a heterosexual woman. She said it took her 6 years to write the book from start to finish.
The three biggest challenges of writing the book were:
Trying to do justice to the true story but not being defined by it.
Converting the raw data of her personal essays into a novel.
Learning that you have to write the entire book before you send it to a publisher, in the fiction world, which is not so in the nonfiction world, as she’d written in the past.
Ms. Montanaro was asked if she had planned to write both such a historic and timely novel. She said she absolutely did not plan it that way at all.
The audiobook version of Everything We Thought Was True is set to release on May 13 through Tantor Media, and it’s being read by Annalee Scott. Lisa Montanaro is planning on starting her next book in a few months, and I can’t wait to see what it will be all about!
I’ve already finished reading Everything We Thought Was True, and you can read my full thoughts here. Happy reading, all!
Melina Green is an aspiring young playwright who has just finished writing a work based on her ancestor Emilia Bassano, an Italian Jew. Melina would love to have her play performed but knows it would be unlikely, until her best friend drunkenly submits it to a festival under a male pseudonym.
Picoult’s novel takes place in a duel timeline, taking the reader back in time to 1591 to Emilia’s time, and going back to Melina’s timeline in present day. Each were equally riveting and kept me engaged the whole way through.
Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.
In August 1975, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from her summer camp in the Adirondacks. This was fourteen years after her older brother Bear, had gone missing from the same camp, never to be found again. The premise seems intriguing and I was excited to read this one, but I was bored with it about halfway through. Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me.
Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.
Slocumb’s sophomore novel is a page-turning historical thriller that musicians and non-musicians alike will devour! Told in a dual timeline, the novel follows musical prodigy Josephine Reed who begins to work with Fredrick Delaney in the jazz age. In the present day, music professor Bern and his friend Eboni in the present, a powerhouse duo determined to dredge up the secrets of the past and bring justice to those who deserve it.
28 Days follows sixteen-year-old Mira who smuggles food into the Warsaw ghetto to keep her family safe in 1942. When the ghetto is set to be liquidated, she is determined to find a way to keep her family safe. She meets a group of young people like herself who are planning an uprising against the occupying forces. She joins them, and they resist for 28 days, much longer than they thought possible.
Nanea is a young girl living in Hawaii in the 1940s, when Peal Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, the event that initiated the United States in the Second World War. Her father works at the naval base that was attacked, and she has to deal with the fact that some of the members of her family and friends are missing after the act of war. She relies on her spirit of aloha to get her through the tough times that lie ahead.
Julie is a young girl in the 1970s who loves shooting hoops with her dad. When she finds out there is a basketball team at her school, she desperately wants to join. However, the team is only for boys and there is no girls’ team. The coach laughs at her when she asks to join the boys’ team, and she is crushed. Julie decides to fight for her place on the team anyway, but will she succeed?
This book takes place in the 1960s, when Black Americans faced segregation and civil injustice. Nine-year-old Melody is excited to sing her first solo at her church’s Youth Day, and has to choose the songs she sings wisely. She elicits advice from her older brother and sister, and is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. Then, when tragedy strikes, Melody is stunned into silence. Can she find her voice again and speak out for civil rights?
![28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto by [Safier, David]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51uS578RQqL.jpg)
Michelle’s Bookish Life 