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The Nature of Truth
A new, revised edition in paperback in 2014:
A graduate student at Yale University, Helmut Sanchez has discovered an ugly truth about his boss, a world-renowned German professor. In a letter written more than fifty years ago, Professor Werner Hopfgartner absolved Austria of any guilt for its participation in the Second World War.
What kind of sick mind would rationalize away the murder of millions of Jews, gypsies and other subversives, Helmut wonders. And how can it be that he has been helping, and even admiring, such a person? As the young researcher continues his quest for answers, he uncovers something even more horrific, something that fuels a dangerous obsession for justice--and a murderous plan.
But he isn't the only one who hates Hopfgartner. Regina Neumann, a colleague in the department, is determined to nail the aged scholar for his sexual involvement with young co-eds, something everyone knows about but ignores. And there are former lovers and the students he has taken advantage of. Award-winning author Sergio Troncoso has penned a suspenseful novel that explores right and wrong, good and evil, and the murky borders in between. Ultimately, we are left to ask: what is the nature of truth?
A graduate student at Yale University, Helmut Sanchez has discovered an ugly truth about his boss, a world-renowned German professor. In a letter written more than fifty years ago, Professor Werner Hopfgartner absolved Austria of any guilt for its participation in the Second World War.
What kind of sick mind would rationalize away the murder of millions of Jews, gypsies and other subversives, Helmut wonders. And how can it be that he has been helping, and even admiring, such a person? As the young researcher continues his quest for answers, he uncovers something even more horrific, something that fuels a dangerous obsession for justice--and a murderous plan.
But he isn't the only one who hates Hopfgartner. Regina Neumann, a colleague in the department, is determined to nail the aged scholar for his sexual involvement with young co-eds, something everyone knows about but ignores. And there are former lovers and the students he has taken advantage of. Award-winning author Sergio Troncoso has penned a suspenseful novel that explores right and wrong, good and evil, and the murky borders in between. Ultimately, we are left to ask: what is the nature of truth?
- GenresFiction
259 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2003
3 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
About the author
Sergio Troncoso
22 books111 followersSergio Troncoso is the author of Nobody's Pilgrims, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, The Nature of Truth and From This Wicked Patch of Dust; and as editor, Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds and Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence.
He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders, and the border beyond the border.
Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has also served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Texas Highways, CNN Opinion, Houston Chronicle, Other Voices, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Texas Monthly.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso, Texas in rural Ysleta. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University.
A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Texas Institute of Letters, and Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction.
Among the numerous literary awards Troncoso has won are the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama from International Latino Book Awards, Bronze Award for Anthologies from Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal for Best Collection of Short Stories from International Latino Book Awards, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction from ForeWord Reviews.
The El Paso City Council voted unanimously to rename the public library branch in Ysleta as the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library.
His literary papers are archived at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas.
Nobody's Pilgrims
"Eloquent, bold, and terrifying."
-Elizabeth Crook, author of The Which Way Tree
---------
Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds:
"A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity."
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review
---------
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:
“It's his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon."
-The Texas Observer
---------
From This Wicked Patch of Dust:
“Troncoso’s novel is an engaging literary achievement.”
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review
----------
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays:
“We owe it to ourselves to read, savor and read them again.”
-The El Paso Times
----------
The Nature of Truth:
“Impressively lucid.”
-The Chicago Tribune
----------
The Last Tortilla and Other Stories:
“Enthusiastically recommended.”
-Booklist
----------
Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence
“An eye-opening collection of essays.”
-Publishers Weekly
He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders, and the border beyond the border.
Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has also served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Texas Highways, CNN Opinion, Houston Chronicle, Other Voices, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Texas Monthly.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso, Texas in rural Ysleta. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University.
A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Texas Institute of Letters, and Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction.
Among the numerous literary awards Troncoso has won are the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama from International Latino Book Awards, Bronze Award for Anthologies from Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal for Best Collection of Short Stories from International Latino Book Awards, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction from ForeWord Reviews.
The El Paso City Council voted unanimously to rename the public library branch in Ysleta as the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library.
His literary papers are archived at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas.
Nobody's Pilgrims
"Eloquent, bold, and terrifying."
-Elizabeth Crook, author of The Which Way Tree
---------
Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds:
"A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity."
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review
---------
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:
“It's his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon."
-The Texas Observer
---------
From This Wicked Patch of Dust:
“Troncoso’s novel is an engaging literary achievement.”
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review
----------
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays:
“We owe it to ourselves to read, savor and read them again.”
-The El Paso Times
----------
The Nature of Truth:
“Impressively lucid.”
-The Chicago Tribune
----------
The Last Tortilla and Other Stories:
“Enthusiastically recommended.”
-Booklist
----------
Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence
“An eye-opening collection of essays.”
-Publishers Weekly
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 20, 2013
When scholars of the 22nd century look back on the society of today and try to figure out what made us tick, they are likely to turn to the work of Sergio Troncoso, the greatest American novelist you've never heard of. In another universe, he's already won the Nobel Prize for literature. Unfortunately, we live in this one, where his books are overlooked and sell in the hundreds, not the millions. Thankfully, we can still read what he has to say, and savor his hard truths. The Nature of Truth is no exception to his magnificent ouevre of masterworks. Like Herman Melville, another great American novelist who touched on similar themes, his time will come, although he may be long dead by then.
July 26, 2014
One of the many valuable missions of Arte Público Press is to rescue and re-release books important to the corpus of Mexican-American literature. This year the Houston publisher is bringing to our attention a couple of titles that once broke new ground and that continue to speak to readers today.
How far would you be willing to go to discover a hidden truth? What would you risk to bring justice to someone who had avoided it for decades? In The Nature of Truth, originally published in 2003, award-winning author Sergio Troncoso continues his preference for exploring the intellectual and moral quandaries of his characters (prevalent also in his debut, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories).
Helmut Sánchez, a half-Chicano and half-German graduate student at Yale, is research assistant to the aging scholar Werner Hopfgartner. When he discovers that the professor expressed Nazi sympathies in his earliest writing, Sanchez is both repulsed and driven to dig deeper. The truths he uncovers, when coupled with the philandering destruction of Hopfgartner among students and staff of the university, unhinge the younger man to the point that he decides to effect his own awful sort of justice.
As he bounces between his own guilt, his girlfriend’s moral sturdiness and a police investigation, Sánchez, the eternal outsider, begins to discover a deeper truth about human existence: the value of community and faith, which help us to rise above the black hole into which causal chains of blame and cold facts often lead.
Troncoso adroitly balances the pulpy aspects of hardboiled mystery with weighty philosophical issues and the labyrinthine inner workings of a major university. Poised at the intersection of Dostoyevsky, Dan Brown and Dashiell Hammett, The Nature of Truth is the sort of fast-paced but rewarding read that will make your summer complete.
How far would you be willing to go to discover a hidden truth? What would you risk to bring justice to someone who had avoided it for decades? In The Nature of Truth, originally published in 2003, award-winning author Sergio Troncoso continues his preference for exploring the intellectual and moral quandaries of his characters (prevalent also in his debut, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories).
Helmut Sánchez, a half-Chicano and half-German graduate student at Yale, is research assistant to the aging scholar Werner Hopfgartner. When he discovers that the professor expressed Nazi sympathies in his earliest writing, Sanchez is both repulsed and driven to dig deeper. The truths he uncovers, when coupled with the philandering destruction of Hopfgartner among students and staff of the university, unhinge the younger man to the point that he decides to effect his own awful sort of justice.
As he bounces between his own guilt, his girlfriend’s moral sturdiness and a police investigation, Sánchez, the eternal outsider, begins to discover a deeper truth about human existence: the value of community and faith, which help us to rise above the black hole into which causal chains of blame and cold facts often lead.
Troncoso adroitly balances the pulpy aspects of hardboiled mystery with weighty philosophical issues and the labyrinthine inner workings of a major university. Poised at the intersection of Dostoyevsky, Dan Brown and Dashiell Hammett, The Nature of Truth is the sort of fast-paced but rewarding read that will make your summer complete.
June 19, 2014
I received a signed copy of this book through a goodreads giveaway. Although this book was not what I expected it definitely did not disappoint. The story was good and very thought provoking. It truly made me think about all the issues addressed in this novel. That being said, the reason I gave it 4/5 is because at times it was a little slow and hard struggled to keep my attention. Other than that I would definitely suggest this book to others who want to read a book that will not only entertain them but will make them think for a significant time after it's over.
July 14, 2008
Although a bit slow to begin and more than a little melodramatic near the end, this book was very enjoyable. There were questions that I kept asking myself: Is anyone capable of a premeditated murder? Are some killings justifiable? And if a "good" person does kill another can he live with the guilt? The possible answers are explored through two characters who couldn't be more different. I actually would have rated this book 3.5 stars.
March 7, 2013
3.5 stars. For the first half of the novel, Nature of Truth is a swiftly-moving, but fairly conventional academic thriller/suspense novel. Then it takes a sharp turn and becomes something else--a psychological thriller. Troncoso keeps a firm hand on the plot and the characters, and the writing is strictly mainstream literary fiction. Not "literature", but literary suspense.
November 7, 2007
I went to high school with Sergio, so I was very interested in reading his book. I was interested in the characters and what happened to them - I enjoyed it.
August 9, 2016
Overall, I have to say I did not like this book. The premise was great (the plot involved several "mysteries"-- criminal, academic, and personal.) The setting was intriguing (the ivory tower of pure intellectualism, Yale, paired against grim, crime-infested New Haven.) The suspense as the story unfolded was genuine and grippingly palpable. Plus, the book offers the reader plenty of meaty philosophical issues with which it's fun to grapple alongside the characters (truth? who determines it? guilt? innocence? puishment?)
For me, however, many of these good points are drowned in a sea of offense. Every woman character is introduced with a description of how she is, or is not, sexually attractive. All but one black character is begging, homeless, or a gang member. Gay relationships are described as "aggression and dominance wrapped around caring."
I have NEVER considered myself squeamish reading sex scenes but this book made me so. If I ever have to read about "pointy breasts," "sharp fingernails" inserted into a vagina, a "magnificent, perfectly protruding ass so out of reach," or a "wet spot .. [on] the round bulge of his crotch ..[as] an endearing symbol to remember him by;" I think I'll throw up. All of the sex scenes in the book were frankly gross, upsetting, and unnecessarily prolonged. This is especially true when one of the sex scenes is inappropriately coerced. The young co-ed is described as really enjoying being sexually harassed. I did not enjoy reading about it in sickening detail, however. Plus, Helmut, the novel's protagonist, ADMIRES the old abuser for this type of activity.
Ultimately though, I might have grumpily looked past all that (sexist, racist, juvenile descriptions of women, and a protagonist I loathed) if the meat of the story held up. It didn't though. The primary plot point -- a murder -- doesn't hold water for me. I never once believed the killer would have done what he did. The narrator even states, the killer "knew no one else would understand his reasons." But in a novel, the one person who MUST understand the reasons is the reader. Otherwise, what comes after is just an exercise in clever plot manipulation. A reader cannot be invested in a murder they believe would never happen.
There are a number of other things I didn't like too much: "clues" documented unnecessarily, "evidence" too conveniently located, long pithy discussions of philosophy inserted into an otherwise well-paced storyline (dragging the eyelids downward,) and a "soft ending" that I believe wasted the last hour of my reading time.
I just don't get all the rave reviews for this book.
Here is one last quote to hammer home my point. This is the omnicient narrator speaking, not the 21-year-old protagonist: "Only her figure, it seemed, had survived Yale. Under her rumpled, brown-plaid sirt and dirty jeans was a very nice body. She was one of those women who made it almost illegal to wear blue jeans and a T-shirt. It was her round behind, her perky breasts, these exquisitely taut thighs."
For me, however, many of these good points are drowned in a sea of offense. Every woman character is introduced with a description of how she is, or is not, sexually attractive. All but one black character is begging, homeless, or a gang member. Gay relationships are described as "aggression and dominance wrapped around caring."
I have NEVER considered myself squeamish reading sex scenes but this book made me so. If I ever have to read about "pointy breasts," "sharp fingernails" inserted into a vagina, a "magnificent, perfectly protruding ass so out of reach," or a "wet spot .. [on] the round bulge of his crotch ..[as] an endearing symbol to remember him by;" I think I'll throw up. All of the sex scenes in the book were frankly gross, upsetting, and unnecessarily prolonged. This is especially true when one of the sex scenes is inappropriately coerced. The young co-ed is described as really enjoying being sexually harassed. I did not enjoy reading about it in sickening detail, however. Plus, Helmut, the novel's protagonist, ADMIRES the old abuser for this type of activity.
Ultimately though, I might have grumpily looked past all that (sexist, racist, juvenile descriptions of women, and a protagonist I loathed) if the meat of the story held up. It didn't though. The primary plot point -- a murder -- doesn't hold water for me. I never once believed the killer would have done what he did. The narrator even states, the killer "knew no one else would understand his reasons." But in a novel, the one person who MUST understand the reasons is the reader. Otherwise, what comes after is just an exercise in clever plot manipulation. A reader cannot be invested in a murder they believe would never happen.
There are a number of other things I didn't like too much: "clues" documented unnecessarily, "evidence" too conveniently located, long pithy discussions of philosophy inserted into an otherwise well-paced storyline (dragging the eyelids downward,) and a "soft ending" that I believe wasted the last hour of my reading time.
I just don't get all the rave reviews for this book.
Here is one last quote to hammer home my point. This is the omnicient narrator speaking, not the 21-year-old protagonist: "Only her figure, it seemed, had survived Yale. Under her rumpled, brown-plaid sirt and dirty jeans was a very nice body. She was one of those women who made it almost illegal to wear blue jeans and a T-shirt. It was her round behind, her perky breasts, these exquisitely taut thighs."
July 17, 2014
This was an enjoyable read. I felt the story started slowly and the author was repetitive and tried a bit hard, but eventually it opened into a great thriller and morality tale. I particularly enjoyed the debate of the sense of standards and integrity and how that plays between your commitment to yourself vs your commitment to your community. Also, towards the end, there is a very cynical, but truthful, rant about what we have become as a people and what has lead to the lessening of "the right thing to do" being the standard.
December 15, 2014
The Nature of Truth is the most engaging novel I've read in a long time -- an exciting thriller with real substance. Troncoso draws us in as his main character, Helmut Sanchez, makes a shocking discovery about the eteemed professor he works for -- and then wrestles with a moral dilemma as he decides what to do with this secret.
I especially enjoyed the plot's venturing into exotic locations and historic events across Europe. Troncoso has succeeded in writing a fast-paced novel that will keep you thinking long after you've reluctantly turned the last page.
I especially enjoyed the plot's venturing into exotic locations and historic events across Europe. Troncoso has succeeded in writing a fast-paced novel that will keep you thinking long after you've reluctantly turned the last page.
July 16, 2014
I had a tough time getting into this book but after 100 or so pages, I was glad I stuck with it. The first part was a little slow and plodding for my taste and also refers to places and things related to Germany. Since my knowledge of Germany is limited, that may be why I struggled with it. Once the action starts, though, it does get suspenseful and throws in some interesting plot twists. You may or may not be surprised by the ending, depending on your view of right or wrong.
July 27, 2014
This is a first novel by a good writer who spends too much effort to let the reader know how educated he is. There are far too many esoteric references that do not contribute to the plot. The plot was good: a mystery with a "they all lived happily ever after" ending. The book is far too long. An editor should have helped cut some of this work.
I received a review copy of this book from Goodreads.
I received a review copy of this book from Goodreads.
January 30, 2016
What is truth? Can truth hide in little lies, which build upon one another until people finally believe the lie to be the truth? Is this lie the truth, or is the truth the lie of having people believe the lie to be true? Read the rest of this review on my blog: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.c...
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August 5, 2017I made it to page 14. I couldn't get into this book.
Since I didn't finish it, there will not be a rating.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews