The Truth Project

The Truth Project

"A girl who wanted so badly
to see herself in her roots
and prove
once and for all
that she might fit somewhere."
Fans of YA narratives told in verse centering on often
challenging and painful searches for identity are in for a real treat.
Cordelia, narrator of Dante Medema's The Truth Project, is the
middle child in what she calls "the perfect Alaskan family." She's
sandwiched between older away at college big sister, Beatrice, and
younger sister, Iris, who speaks in hashtags. Her mother is an
ambitious real estate agent. Her father is a college professor overly
fond of quoting Shakespeare. She's never feels like she really fits
in. In fact she's sure she's adopted.
The truth will turn out to be a lot more complicated.
Cordelia expects to sail through her last year of high school.
She's already been accepted by Columbia. She's going to do her senior
project in poetry. She could stop writing poetry like she could stop
breathing.
[Like some reviewer you know.]
She will write about her discovery of how ancestry has shaped her.
But the results of her GeneQuest DNA kit convey a disturbing
reality. It goes beyond the nationality and ethnic percentages most
of us are used to. It lists her father as Jack Bisset, a total
stranger. She wonders how it would have been to have grown up with
him as a dad rather than as,
"The child
stuck in the middle
of a family
who would have
been just as complete
without her."
Only her biological mother is still her biological mother.
"Because I know at last
I'm not only a lie
but a product of
infidelity.
A sin.
A sob story.
A secret.
I am the thing people
whisper about."
That's a pretty major discovery. And it's one Cordelia has to
handle pretty much on her own. Her mom has said that if the father
she has known about just about all her life learned about her
biological father it would kill him.
Cordelia's search for the answer to her question--what impact
ancestry has on the person she is--is authentic and engaging. It's
one of the sweetest reads I've ever come across.
On a purrrsonal note, I'm very much enjoying the blissfully slow nine
days of spring break. Today I did two major things. The first is I
wrote an opinion piece and submitted it to the Bangor Daily News.
I've done that successfully a lot of times. What makes this time
different is that if BDN doesn't take it I'll send it elsewhere until
I find a place that does. My new getting serious about writing
thing. The other is that my friend Diane who has a big vehicle drove
me to the redemption center to cash on a bunch of returnables. While
the dude was processing them we went to the library for a visit. I
dropped off some books, picked up an ILL, and found a bunch more
books. Then we returned to the redemption center to pick up the
money. $41.15 more for Tobago's savings for if she ever needs an
operation. (Jules)
I iz $41.15 richer!!! (Tobago)
A great big shout goes out to our good friend, Diane, with whom I'm so
looking forward to working in the Community Garden this summer.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway




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