The Lies They Told

A Simultaneous Hardcover EditionΓÇöAlso Available as Trade Paperback Original In rural 1930s Virginia,a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against AmericaΓÇÖs rising eugenics movement ΓÇô when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on classracedisabilityeducationand country of origin ΓÇô in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injusticesurvivaland hope for readers of Susan MeissnerKristin Hannahand Christina Baker Kline. When Lena ContiΓÇöa youngunwed motherΓÇösees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Islandshe vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imaginedand she is separated from her mother and teenage brotherwho are labeled burdens to societydenied entryand deported back to Germany. Nowalone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvationshe finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned. Silas Wolfea widowed family relativereluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in VirginiaΓÇÖs Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the hills around Wolfe Hollow remind Lena of her homelandshe struggles to adjust. Worseshe is stunned to learn the children in her care have been taught to hide when the sheriff comes around. As Lena meets their neighborsshe realizes the community is vibrant and tight knitbut also senses growing unease. The State of Virginia is scheming to paint them as ignorantimmoraland backwards so they can evict them from their landseize children from parentsand deal with those possessing ΓÇ£inferior genes.ΓÇ¥ After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindednessher own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and EpilepticsLena face impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughterΓÇöand protecting the peopleand the landshe has grown to love.