The Face Tells the Secret

by Jane Bernstein

Everything has been hidden from Roxanne G.—her birth name, her sister, her family history—until her “boyfriend” tries to ingratiate himself by flying in her estranged mother from Tel Aviv. That visit is the start of a tumultuous journey, in which she first learns about a profoundly disabled sister who lives in a residential community in the Galilee and later begins to unearth disturbing long-held family secrets. The process of facing this history and acknowledging the ways she’s been shaped by it will enable Roxanne to forge the kinds of meaningful connections that had for so long been elusive. In this way, The Face Tells the Secret is the story about a woman who finds love and learns how to open herself to its pleasures. The Face Tells the Secret is also a story that explores disability from many angles and raises questions about our responsibility to care for our kin. How far should Roxanne go to care for the wounded people in her life—her mother, her sister, the man who professes undying love? What should she take on? When is it necessary to turn away from someone’s suffering?

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

315 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Jane Bernstein's new novel, The Face Tells the Secret, was published by Regal House in the fall of 2019. She is the author of five previous books, among them the memoirs Bereft - A Sister's Story, and Rachel in the World. Jane is a lapsed screenwriter and an essayist whose work has been widely published in such places as Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, and the New York Times Magazine. In 2018, her essay “Still Running” was chosen for Best American Sports Writing 2018, and Gina from Siberia, a picture book she wrote with her daughter Charlotte Glynn was published. Her grants and awards include two National Endowment Fellowships in Creative Writing and a Fulbright Fellowship. She is a professor of English and a member of the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University." Visit www.janebernstein.net to read some of her shorter work.

Reviews

[Michele Herman · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the first-person narrator, Roxanne Garlick, began racing through her unhappy New Jersey childhood in the opening chapter -- titled “Nothing” -- I knew I was in good hands immediately. Roxanne is pained but funny, brisk but generous with descriptions. Something about her life doesn’t quite add up -- her accomplished physicist mother seems barely able to tolerate her, her father is impatient but also something of a nonentity, the family is Jewish but observes no holidays or traditions, no relatives or friends come to visit. The novel chronicles Roxanne’s long, slow awakening from the trauma her parents tried desperately to squelch.

Never once did I detect a false or showy note. Never did I feel the gears grinding. The characters – quite an expansive group by the end -- have the real, lived-in quality of actual complicated people. The story is full of slowly revealed mysteries, hard-won insights, and surprising changes of scenery and even continent. I came to love Roxanne and her expanding world so much that I was a little bereft when it was time to say goodbye.

[Regmg1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought it was o k. After a while it got pretty depressing. I almost put it down. But somewhere it got much better. I liked it. It was amazing how Rosxanne got to work with her sister. She also felt better about herself and The adult love she and Baruch shared was great.

[Candi Sary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading three books but this was the one that kept pulling me back into it. Loved the characters and the writing—just one of those novels where the language makes it such a pleasure to read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few of the things that make this book outstanding:
• Turns of phrase on every page that perfectly capture people, places, and emotions.
• Unfolding discoveries about a painful family history that make sense of what seems at first inexplicable.
• A blazingly honest account of the narrator’s reaction to a profoundly disabled relation. Like most of us, she begins in a place of extreme discomfort… but gradually goes far beyond that, teaching us about possibilities we hope that we, too, might be capable of.
• An unexpected love story, after long unhappiness—as precious as water in the desert. This book captures that early intoxication better than anything I’ve ever read.
Congratulations, Jane Bernstein, on your wise, insightful, compelling book.

[K.T. Sparks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, I get lucky and stumble on a book that strikes me the way the first novels I read, late at night by flashlight, turning pages until I or the batteries gave out. These were stories rich in character and complication—A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, My Name is Asher Lev, The Chronicles of Narnia—the kinds that swallowed me like alternate universes; the kinds that are still with me, scenes and relationships that pop into my head as if they are my own memories. The Face Tells the Secret is one of those books.

It tells the story of Roxanne G., a successful graphic artist in Pittsburgh with a live-in, soon-to-be-ex boyfriend and future stalker. On one level, Roxanne knows the relationship is a mess—her paramour careens from smothering to cold-blooded—but she’s kept from decisively moving on by crippling doubts about her understanding of how to love and be loved, byproducts of a lonely and passionless childhood. She is the only child, she believes, of a brilliant, narcissistic, and demanding mother—the first woman to head a department at Bell Labs—and a passive father—the often ineffective damper to his wife’s rages. Add to that mix, a plethora of lies and secrets that keep her family estranged from their roots, and it is no wonder Roxanne can’t exit an unhealthy attachment or conceive how to form a better one.

In a disturbing bid for reconciliation, Roxanne’s boyfriend flies in her mother from Israel, where she, Jewish but stridently non-practicing with no friends in that country, has inexplicitly decided to spend her last days. Roxanne immediately realizes her mother, suffering from dementia, cannot be allowed to return to Tel Aviv alone and reluctantly takes up managing her care. In short order, Roxanne’s not only forced try to come to terms with a mother Roxanne loves, hates, and had hoped to forget, but also learns she has a twin, a severely disabled sister who has spent her life in a therapeutic community in Galilee. As secrets spill out and Rebecca measures and remeasures herself in light of her mother’s decline and an evolving understanding of her family, she experiences life-changing loss and love, both tragic and rich.

Woven between this epic story of self-discovery are other fascinating threads, each one worthy of its own novel: a complicated but satisfying love story, pot-boiling domestic thriller, an exploration of the meaning of friendship. It sounds like a lot—and it is—but Jane Bernstein pulls it off. Roxanne’s journey is complicated but it’s real—both heartbreaking and joyous at once, the kind of story that will be with me a long time.

[CR · Rating 4 out of 5]

This character-driven novel is all about one woman's struggle with her childhood. This was a page turner of a title that I couldn't put down! I loved every second of it! The pacing was well done and the addition of the thriller aspect was a great twist. The struggles that Roxanne goes through is so much that you can't help but feel for her.

[Hinda Haskell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have recently completed The Face Tells the Secret. It was exceptional.

I have read three memoirs by Ms. Bernstein which were outstanding because as she shares her life’s challenges, we realize that her stories are being told by an incredibly talented writer, a person who has mastered her craft.
We experience this talent again in her new novel. The dialogues feel very real. The descriptions are stunning, and the raw emotions are piercing.
The Face Tells the Secret takes place in Pittsburgh and Tel Aviv. It is a heartbreaking and powerful story about Roxanne whose mother was responsible for keeping family secrets that Roxanne deserved to know. As Roxanne discovers these secrets, she also discovers that she deserves to love herself and to be loved by others.
This is an excellent book for many reasons but especially for the richness of the language and the complexity of the characters.
A great read!

[Heather Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved so much about this novel. The huge questions being asked (what am I?), the wonderful prose, the authentic settings of Pittsburgh and Tel Aviv, the theme of invisibility (or being “unseen”). But it is the cast of complex, driven characters that made this read so rich and enjoyable for me. There is the mother who keeps her daughter at a distance, the father who inquires on his deathbed about his daughter, wasn’t there another one?, infuriating (and sometimes comical) Harley who won’t give up. And Roxanne- suffering Roxanne-- full of intelligence, longing, and yearning. I so felt Roxanne’s struggle as she grapples with her distant mother’s seeming indifference, flaws, dementia- and eventually, her secrets. A complex, smart, and moving work by a writer who knows what she is doing. You really can’t ask for more.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find this book difficult to review. I enjoyed it, but I also felt emotionally distant from it. In a way, that may be fitting, as the protagonist is someone who has unresolved family trauma and keeps people at arm's length for much of the story. But this also made it hard for me to feel deeply moved by the story, which is typically one of my greatest joys in reading.

The characters are all well-drawn and interesting, the prose sure-footed. Overall, the vibe of the writing reminds me of literary short stories, which is a compliment, and yet somehow also works against this novel, I think? (Perhaps because it is not a short story?)

Other notes:

- I really enjoyed "visiting" Israel through the story.

- In real life, I think I would find it creepy that Baruch swam (etc) with a stranger who didn't have the ability to consent to his attention? (But I am willing to give him more leeway as a fictional character.)

- Roxanne's boyfriend drove me bonkers.

- As ever, I enjoyed the themes of complicated mother/daughter relationships, and complicated sisterhood.

- Yay for stories set (mostly) in Pittsburgh.

- Even though part of me was rooting for her business partner/BFF to end up as a romantic interest, ultimately I'm glad he didn't. I have lots of platonic friends of the opposite sex, and I appreciate that dynamic being honored.