Good summer reads

Hidden journals that tell buried secrets

‘Even You’

by Marilyn Oser

available September 2015

In the wake of the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage comes a stunning portrait of a long-term same-sex relationship and how it unravels.

Claire Bramany, plump and fiftyish, is not what you’d call impetuous. She’s capable, reliable and steady. Her 23-year partnership with Jessie Friedman has been joyous at its best—and mostly it has been at its best. But when a sudden accident in Brooklyn in 1995 takes Jessie’s life, Claire’s world implodes in crushing grief. And worse is soon to come: while cleaning out Jessie’s desk, Claire finds hidden journals that tell long-buried secrets of Jessie’s western girlhood.

Jessie’s account of Tulsa in 1944 appears innocent and playful, at first. Her days are peopled with quirky characters—especially Uncle Jimmy, an honest-to-goodness teenage hero just back from war-torn Europe. He’s Jessie’s favorite, until the afternoon he makes his move on nine-year-old Jessie.

No secrets, secrets kill: this was the promise Claire and Jessie had made to each other. But in all their time together, Claire never heard of Jessie’s

Uncle Jimmy, nor of any sexual violation. Shattered, yearning to reconnect with the lover she thought she knew, Claire heads out to Oklahoma to find this man.

Is the story in the journals true? If so, has Claire any other course than to avenge Jimmy’s hideous crimes...?

A novel based on true events, “Even You” speaks movingly of a time to love, a time to mourn, and a time to let go.