A beguiling novel of small-town friendship and finding yourself.

The perfect read

In The Truth According to Us, Annie Barrows leaves no doubt that she is a storyteller of rare caliber, with wisdom and insight to spare. As she subtly unpacks the emotional intricacies of the Romeyn family and their small West Virginia town in the wake of the Great Depression, we’re struck by the slipperiness of history—how the stories we tell each other and ourselves often demand to be interrogated; how the things we’re driven to know about our families, our towns, our closest intimates, will always change us, sometimes over and over. Barrows is at her best here. Every page rings like a bell.

An epic but intimate family novel with richly imagined characters, an intriguing plot and the social sensibilities you would expect of a story set in the South … sizzling.

Barrows, who co-wrote the surprise bestseller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008), takes a similarly panoramic approach to the insular hamlet of Macedonia, West Virginia, using multiple points of view with epistolary interludes…[T]his unique corner of Americana—a mélange of Yankee and Southern cultures—is re-created as vividly as the very different Anglo-European milieu of Guernsey. Undeniably entertaining.