Big Lies in a Small Town: A Novel

If Anna Dale represents the narrative’s past, 22-year-old Morgan is the avatar of the present. Having been incarcerated for her involvement in a devastating car accident, she gets an unexpected reprieve when the daughter of artist Jesse Williams offers her a chance at freedom in exchange for restoring an old mural. As an art student, she jumps at the chance even though she has no experience in art restoration and faces a deadline that seems impossible to meet.

As the intertwining narratives progress, Morgan’s life parallels Anna’s in many ways until they eventually converge. Both women are haunted by their pasts: Anna by her mother’s suicide and Morgan by her guilt over the car accident. Both women face creative challenges: Anna, in creating a mural that does justice to a town she never fully understands, and Morgan, in restoring a 78-year-old piece of art in terrible condition. Part of Morgan’s troubled history is her relationship with Trey, the driver responsible for the accident and her first real love (or so she thought at the time). Morgan’s narrative journey involves learning about art restoration and opening her heart to love. Deeply distrustful of relationships after Trey flees the scene of the accident, her burgeoning feelings for Oliver, the gallery’s curator, and her quest for sobriety test her emotional mettle.

Morgan’s path of self-discovery takes many forms. She realizes she is not cut out to be an artist, but she discovers a passion for art restoration, and as she restores Anna’s enigmatic mural, she becomes fascinated with the link that such projects provide with the past and with other artists. She eventually discovers a familial link to Anna Dale, for as the descendant of the child that Anna gives away following her rape at Martin’s hands, Morgan realizes that this connection is why Jesse chose her for the project in the first place (Anna is her great-grandmother). The final step in Morgan’s maturation process is her confrontation with Emily Maxwell, the victim of the accident. For most of the novel, she can’t bring herself to face Emily, who serves as the embodiment of her guilt, but in the end, with Oliver’s patient prodding, she steps up to Emily’s door to face her final demon.

Jesse comes to Anna as a student volunteer and a talented young artist who cannot envision a career path for himself due to The Legacy of Racism that plagues his town. As a young Black man growing up on a farm, he is well aware of the expectations that he will eventually quit school and take up the same line of work as his father. Art school is a privilege he never considers until Anna comes into his life. Jesse is passionate, eager to learn, industrious, and extremely resourceful. Perhaps it is the wariness that comes from being a Black man in the south, but when he discovers Martin’s body and Anna in an emotional stupor, he immediately takes charge and disposes of the body, the bloody hammer, and Martin’s motorcycle. He intuitively understands that Anna may never get the justice she deserves and likely will be framed for murder, and he also understands that he might easily be dragged into the situation as well. Running and hiding are the only viable options, and his ingenuity saves both their lives.

As an adult, Williams never forgets Anna’s kindness, and he repays it by nurturing other young artists, including Morgan, her great-granddaughter. He can, however, be difficult with his family, and even after his death, his insistence in his will that the gallery open on a specific date fills Lisa and Morgan with anxiety. He is the connection between the past and the present, between Anna and Morgan, and he draws them together from beyond the grave. He has a soft spot for hard-luck cases, and through Jesse’s charity, insight, and indirect influence, Morgan transcends all the demons of her past—her troubled upbringing, her drinking, and her guilt—and forges a new life for herself.

Jesse Williams’s daughter, Lisa, is entrusted to enact the terms of his will, much to her chagrin. A busy realtor with little interest in art or art restoration, her sole motivation to meet the project’s deadline is to keep her house, for her father’s will makes her ownership of the house contingent upon the gallery opening on time. Morgan considers her to be a cold taskmaster, but Lisa’s badgering is only an attempt keep Morgan on task. Her icy exterior is rooted in the fear of losing her father’s estate and her only real connection to him. She does, however, let her guard down and exhibit moments of warmth. She acknowledges her coldness toward Morgan, even admitting, “I know I’ve been a bitch to deal with” (363), but she ultimately expresses her deep gratitude to Morgan for finishing the project on time. She invites Morgan to a family dinner, perhaps as a peace offering, but perhaps also as a way to help her connect with a past she is not yet a part of. In the end, she even allows Morgan to live with her after the gallery opening until she finds a job and a place to live. In a story with so many fragile connections to the past, Lisa represents one more: a tendril that links Morgan to Jesse, and, by extension, to Anna.

Jesse’s younger sister, Nellie, straddles both time periods. She meets Anna as a precocious girl, speaking her mind and eager for the adventure of sharing her room with a white woman. As an adult, she becomes Morgan’s link to the past, remembering as best she can the details of Anna’s plight. While her memory is faulty at times, she recalls several important points that advance the plot of the novel, such as the fact that Anna’s stay at the family farm is shrouded in secrecy for reasons that now elude her. She remembers Peter’s role in saving Jesse after he returns to Edenton but does not recall what he did. Most importantly, as the caretaker of Anna’s journal, she preserves the primary historical source that fills in all the gaps of Anna’s story. She takes a liking to Morgan on their first meeting, and before she dies, she requests that the journal be given to Morgan. Mama Nelle therefore represents a repository of the past and stands as an embodiment of the history and wisdom of past decades. Given how little credence she is given by those around her, she also represents the harsh truth that such wisdom is too often ignored by the younger generation.

A local portrait artist, Martin Drapple assumes that he is guaranteed to get the mural assignment, but when the commission goes to Anna instead, he is deeply resentful. However, he initially masks that resentment with good cheer and good deeds, offering to help Anna with some of the logistics of building and stretching the canvas. While Chamberlain never explicitly states his reasons for doing so, his actions do serve as a pragmatic way for him to gain regular access to the warehouse that serves as Anna’s workshop. His insistence upon “helping” her even after her polite refusal also demonstrates a cavalier willingness to ignore the wishes of this outsider, this woman, and assert his dominance and expertise in a passive-aggressive fashion. Lulled into a false sense of security over his involvement, Anna’s first sign of trouble is the alcohol she smells on his breath and the implicit racism he exhibits by warning her to be wary of Jesse. He soon reveals the full extent of his true nature when he openly slaps his wife in front of Anna and others. Martin’s final descent into brutality, while apparently festering for some time, comes quickly and in a drunken rage. The evidence of his crime is immortalized in the mural, creating an art puzzle that will only be deciphered decades later. Martin also represents the anger of a patriarchy that feels its power is being threatened, a power that is often upheld just as much by the women as the men.

Anna’s landlady, Myrtle, is both a symbol of the old south (by virtue of her age) but also a symbol of its changing ways as evidenced by her somewhat progressive attitudes. She champions Anna’s idea to make the Tea Party the central focus of the mural, and she agrees that depicting a Black woman in the mural is both necessary and morally just, exclaiming that Edenton’s Black residents are “the glue that holds us together” (84). And yet, vestiges of racism remain. Her Black housekeeper must use a separate bathroom, which suggests that Myrtle’s traditional actions don’t always match her progressive rhetoric. Despite these flaws, she serves as a mother figure to Anna, whose own mother has recently died by suicide. Myrtle feeds Anna, frets over her lack of sleep and food, and even summons a doctor when Anna’s trauma adversely affects her health. Myrtle provides a home for Anna, a home she sorely needs in this unfamiliar place.