Book Review: The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

            Immigrant stories are more important now than ever. My great grandmother Ona came to the states from Lithuania in the early 20^th century. While I’m quite disconnected to my personal history, families face the horrible injustices of immigration as you read this review. The time to be educated was yesterday. Thanks to authors like Ellen Marie Wiseman, information is easily digestible and painfully relevant to today’s divided climate.

OVERVIEW

          The Lies They Told  follows young German immigrant, Lena, and her baby, Ella, as they travel to Virginia in the 1930s at the height of the Eugenics conspiracy. When Lena’s family arrives on Ellis Island, she expects to find the American Dream. But when her mother and brother are immediately deported because they seem “burdens to society”, Lena must navigate the cruel new world entirely on her own, wondering if she will ever see her mother and brother again.

THOUGHTS

            The Lies They Told  is one of the most immersive books I’ve ever read. Wiseman nails every detail down to the characters’ differing dialects. She blends languages to portray Lena’s struggle of blending into American life. The novel has a slow pace that would appeal to those wishing to spend intimate time alongside the characters. The first 70 pages alone are spent on Ellis Island over the course of one day. The details are excruciatingly inhumane, but that’s what makes Wiseman a brilliant writer. She’s unsparing.

            Plot seems takes a sidestep to Wiseman’s dedication to creating the authentic atmosphere one might experience if they too had just arrived in rural Virginia. She takes good care to introduce Lena (and the reader) to all types of people living in this time: rural farmers, nosey police, and terrifying immigration officers just to name a few. As mentioned, she uses dialect and vocabulary to guide the reader from Lena’s world to that of Virginia. Lena speaks gently, in somewhat broken English, and interjects with German every now and then. The men on Ellis Island are harsh, degrading to the immigrants, and use intense vocabulary. Later, when Lena meets Silas and the farm children, she hears thick country accents riddled with Virginian slang. Wiseman is an expert in painting full characters which does not go unnoticed nor unappreciated.

            While I do adore books with intensely well-written characters, I did find the plot to be lacking. Around the 130-page mark, I found myself having trouble picking it back up again because there didn’t seem to be much forward momentum. Of course this is a case of needing to stick with it, but those aren’t the types of books I usually seek out. The Lies They Told is perfect for those wanting to immerse themselves in a particular time period alongside a terrible injustice. Sometimes the best way to learn about something is to live it with the people.

Lorraine Durbin ’26 is a creative writing major at Susquehanna University with a specialization in creative non-fiction