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Lies We Tell Ourselves: Shortlisted for the 2016 Carnegie Medal
Robin Talley
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2016******WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL AMNESTY CILIP HONOUR 2016***Lie #1: I'm not afraidLie #2: I'm sure I'm doing the right thingLie #3: I don't care what they think of meIt’s 1959. The battle for civil rights is raging. And it’s Sarah’s first day of school as one of the first black students at previously all-white Jefferson High.No one wants Sarah there. Not the Governor. Not the teachers. And certainly not the students – especially Linda, daughter of the town’s most ardent segregationist.Sarah and Linda are supposed to despise each other. But the more time they spend together, the less their differences matter. And both girls start to feel something they’ve never felt before. Something they’re determined to ignore.Because it’s one thing to stand up to an unjust world – but another to be terrified of what’s in your own heart.‘The main characters are terrific in what is a moving YA novel. And an important one.’ – The Telegraph’This is so thought-provoking it almost hurts to read it, yet every word is needed, is necessary and consequently this is a novel that lingers long after you've finished it' - Lovereading‘This is an emotional and compelling read that I did not want to put down. It is beautifully written and the tension just simmers on the pages.’ – Bookbabblers‘This book packs a very powerful punch’ - Historical Novel Society‘With great characterisation, tough issues covered, and a plot which had me guessing right up until the last pages, this is a must-read. Massively recommended!’ - The Bookbag‘This exceptional novel of first love and sexual awakenings is set against a backdrop of shocking racism and prejudice. It is incredibly well written as the tense, riveting story seamlessly combines fiction with historical fact.’ - Booktrust‘Every now and then a Young Adult book comes along that I want to push into every readers hands both young and old and Lies We Tell Ourselves is that book for 2014’ – Jess Hearts Books‘Talley has mixed two controversial topics together to create a firecracker of a story’ - Cheryl M-M's Book Blog*A Goodreads Choice Awards semi-finalist 2014*
In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.
Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.
Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept "separate but equal."
Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.
Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning novel about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.
ROBIN TALLEY grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, writing terrible teen poetry and riding a desegregation bus to the school across town. A Lambda Literary Fellow, Robin lives in Washington, DC, with her fiancée, plus an antisocial cat and a goofy dog. When Robin's not writing, she's often planning communication strategies at organisations fighting for equal rights and social justice. You can find her on the web at www.robintalley.com (http://www.robintalley.com) or on Twitter @robin_talley (http://www.twitter.com/robin_talley).
ISBN: 978-1-472-05514-9
LIES WE TELL OURSELVES
© 2014 Robin Talley
Published in Great Britain 2014
by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
Version: 2018-10-26
To the Norfolk 17:
Delores Johnson Brown
LaVera Forbes Brown
Louis Cousins
Alveraze Frederick Gonsouland
Andrew Heidelberg
Geraldine Talley Hobby
Edward Jordan
Betty Jean Reed Kea
Olivia Driver Lindsay
Lolita Portis-Jones
Johnnie Rouse
James Turner Jr
Patricia Turner
Carol Wellington
Claudia Wellington
Patricia Godbolt White
Reginald Young
May your courage resonate with every generation
Contents
Cover (#u7fa609a9-8489-5563-8275-1274db7665b9)
Back Cover Text (#u0520fac1-6856-5f10-b3e1-c43b4ab6aa34)
About the Author (#ud9ed06ed-b34b-5cd3-bde4-bfe5870c39eb)
Title Page (#u05d8b34f-b934-5742-b2b0-541f6f654c52)
Copyright (#u78a0489f-3c45-5821-b702-75a3f65717f9)
Dedication (#u01d2e1a8-9f33-5b19-999b-b3085c537a1d)
Part 1 (#ulink_3bd62d7f-149c-53a3-b875-7ff676bf0c6f)
Lie1 (#ulink_0dc251b3-7934-5a9f-9f6e-590fd526b374)
Lie2 (#ulink_51bdfda0-7be7-5443-90cb-9d856d0187d8)
Lie3 (#ulink_7eef7697-e5ae-5139-b4ad-2bd5fda091a0)
Lie4 (#ulink_443496ba-fbed-598c-8873-33aa7b6fca8f)
Lie5 (#ulink_aeadcda7-6751-578a-878a-aabe36f66222)
Lie6 (#ulink_07395d6f-f6b4-5786-bf66-4d8b545bb3cc)
Lie7 (#ulink_11c8d3e3-e3ed-5263-8588-dd97a0e51735)
Part 2 (#ulink_d474e62f-0595-5803-aa15-a808236714c9)
Lie8 (#ulink_41d3b38b-7609-5d60-b10b-afe17509e566)
Lie9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lie26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Truth1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Truth2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
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LIE #1 (#ulink_2aa1c464-ee3c-577b-8afe-30a28e9e3a03)
Jefferson High School, Davisburg, Virginia
February 2, 1959
THE WHITE PEOPLE are waiting for us.
Chuck sees them first. He’s gone out ahead of our group to peer around the corner by the hardware store. From there you can see all of Jefferson High.
The gleaming redbrick walls run forty feet high. The building is a block wide, and the windowpanes are spotless. A heavy concrete arch hangs over the two-story wood-and-glass doors at the front entrance.
The only thing between us and the school is the parking lot. And the white people.
We’ve all walked past Jefferson a thousand times before, but this will be the first time any of us steps inside. Until today, those big wooden doors might as well have been triple-locked, and we didn’t have the key.
Our school, on the other side of town, is only one story. It’s narrow—no wider than the Food Town. Our teachers put boards in the windows to cover the cracks in the glass, but that’s not enough to stop the wind from whistling past us at our desks.
Our old school, anyway. Jefferson is supposed to be our school now.
If we can make it through those big brown doors.
“They’re out there all right,” Chuck says when he comes back. He’s trying to smile, but he just looks frozen. “Somebody sent out the welcome committee.”
No one laughs. We can hear the white people. They’re shouting, but the sound is too disjointed for us to make out the words.
I’m glad. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want my little sister Ruth to hear it, either. I try to pull her closer to me, but she jerks away. Ruth will be fifteen in two weeks, and she already thinks she’s too old to need help from her big sister.
“If anything happens, you come find me, all right?” I whisper. “Don’t trust the teachers or the white people. Come straight to me.”
“I can take care of myself,” Ruth whispers back. She steps away from me and links arms with Yvonne, one of the other freshmen.
“What are you gonna do if they try something?” Chuck asks Ennis. He keeps his voice low, trying to blend in with the dull roar coming from the school, so the younger kids won’t hear him. Chuck, Ennis and I are the only three seniors in our group. Most of the others are freshmen and sophomores. “They’ve got some big guys on that football team.”
