The Untelling

When Aria Jackson was nine, a car accident killed her father and baby sister, forever destroying her family's secure middle-class life. The tragedy left her elegant mother, her rebellious sister, and Aria herself wounded by grief, rage, and guilt. Caught between her mother's bitter dissatisfaction and her sister's efforts to distance herself from the family altogether, Aria grew up alone, despite sharing a crowded home with her mother and sister. At age twenty-five, Aria has created a meaningful life for herself, living in a not-quite-gentrified inner-city neighborhood, teaching literacy to teenaged girls. For the first time in her life, she has both a best girlfriend in whom she can confide and a boyfriend who offers her love and respect. When Aria discovers she may be pregnant, she is seduced by the promise of family, the lure of a normal life, and the dream of a fresh start. Then everything changes in ways she never anticipated. As she mediates between her past and her altered reality, she unearths secrets about family and friends and searches for the courage to divulge one heartbreaking revelation about herself.