The Face Tells the Secret [Paperback]

Everything has been hidden from Roxanne G.—her birth name, her sister, her family history—until her “boyfriend” tries to ingratiate himself by flying in her estranged mother from Tel Aviv. That visit is the start of a tumultuous journey, in which she first learns about a profoundly disabled sister who lives in a residential community in the Galilee and later begins to unearth disturbing long-held family secrets. The process of facing this history and acknowledging the ways she’s been shaped by it will enable Roxanne to forge the kinds of meaningful connections that had for so long been elusive. In this way,The Face Tells the Secretis the story about a woman who finds love and learns how to open herself to its pleasures.The Face Tells the Secretis also a story that explores disability from many angles and raises questions about our responsibility to care for our kin. How far should Roxanne go to care for the wounded people in her life—her mother, her sister, the man who professes undying love? What should she take on? When is it necessary to turn away from someone’s suffering?

"In Jane Bernstein’s thoughtful, character-driven novelThe Face Tells the Secret, a woman struggles with new knowledge about her unhappy childhood. Roxanne was never close to her mother, Leona, who prided herself on not being maternal and who is now going senile. She is reluctant about caring for Leona, but then she learns something unexpected: she has a disabled sister whom her parents gave up decades ago. As she grapples with this news and what it reveals about her parents, Roxanne learns to bond with the family she never knew and grow past her parents’ mistakes. In the sometimes stream-of-consciousness narrative, Roxanne’s complex feelings about her mother and her family are crystal clear. Raw and soul-baring, she expresses a desire to help those around her. She feels selfish for having l#"