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Telling Secrets: A Novel of Family, Secrets, and Survival
Paperback
Publisher Price: $14.99
Publisher: Egyptian Trail Publishing
Published: Jul 10 2026
Pages: 252
Weight: 0.68
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In the small, post-Depression town of Telling, Illinois, the Turner children did something that could never be undone. And they kept its secret for the rest of their lives. Growing up dirt-poor in Southern Illinois's 'Egypt, ' Glenn Alan, Clara, Henry, Nancy Jo, and Sammy Turner endured what no children should. Their father Cal was a man whose cruelty had no bottom. When the oldest children finally acted, they set in motion a chain of consequences that would define every life in the family - from the Depression years through the early 1960s. What follows is not a story of simple justice. It is a story of:
Children who grow up too fast and carry too much
A family fractured by violence and bound together by silence
A young man who inherits the weight of everyone else's survival
Secrets that shape every choice, every relationship, every hope Set against the backdrop of rural poverty, oil money, and the slow modernization of a forgotten corner of America, Telling Secrets does not look away. It does not soften what happened. It tells the truth about what abuse does to a family across decades. From nationally award-winning journalist Harlan Porter - a powerful debut in Southern Gothic literary fiction that earns its darkness on every page. Perfect for readers who believe that the most important stories are also the most difficult ones to tell.
Trigger warnings: Graphic violence, child abuse, explicit sex, incest, suicide and self-harm, language, abortion.
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