The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown

The pillar is called Perry’s Monument (which, I learned later, is actually the world’s tallest Doric column), a memorial built to commemorate the war of 1812 on the shores of Put-In-Bay – an island less than one square mile in size, just off Ohio’s Lake Erie coast. Further dizzying was the swirling trek up to its highest point which eventually gave way to the promised panoramic view – miles and miles of sun-spangled water. It was a hot, white-blue day and I was looking up at what I was sure was the tallest thing that could possibly exist: a taupe, windowless pillar that extended for what seemed like forever into a cloudless sky, as though a tunnel had been flipped vertically. I was seven, maybe, when I felt my first lurch of vertigo. I think there is no greater exhilaration than that which comes from completely novel experiences, and the experiences’ ability to remove one from life’s doldrums – to expand boundaries, to shift perspectives. I’m a little preoccupied with life’s firsts. Along the way, she makes some unforeseen discoveries, and not just about the young singer…īelow, Savannah writes about her fascination with life’s firsts, how a former childhood haunt inspired her latest book and why YA is so exciting to write. But 30 years later, 17-year-old crime podcaster Mona Perry arrives at the self-contained world of Sandown for a summer job – and to uncover what really happened to Roxy. The locals dismiss any foul play, declaring Roxy as just another teenage runaway. In The Things We Don’t See, promising young singer Roxy Raines vanishes into thin air one night in 1986 following her final performance on the tiny island resort of Sandown.

In her follow-up to her YA novel The Truth About Keeping Secrets, author and poet Savannah Brown continues to explore the complexity of truth-seeking: who it serves, why we’re drawn to the concept of truthfulness, and what we discover about ourselves in the process.

The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown