Susan Noe Harmon

To Hide the Truth Susan Noe Harmon

TO HIDE THE TRUTH is a true story of the disturbing relationship between a daughter and her father. It speaks the truth of an era when family abuse and alcoholism were subjects of taboo, revealing a culture that accepted violence as a way of life. Within the walls of the tiny house, the mother suffers not only physically, but emotionally, spiraling downward into a vacant space of self-worth. The daughter becomes desensitized to the depths of nightly terror. In the summer of 1958, nine-year old Susan becomes her mother's protector in a role reversal necessitated for survival. The cycle continues as Susan reaches adulthood. Unable to cope with her mother's insecurities, Susan avoids facing her own problems. A huge resentment festers as her father pretends her childhood was full of love and happiness. Susan craves any acknowledgment of those miserable years in vain. At the end of his life, her father reveals his traumatic and destructive childhood; shedding some light into his emotional being as an adult. Susan forgives her father and herself, realizing that hatred colors the soul and her life is her own.