The Truth About Love showcases the author Josephine Hart's range but was not an easy book to read. It starts off with a bang, literally, as a gruesome accident lethally injures a teenage boy in a small 1960s Irish town. The aftermath of this unnamed boy's death is narrated by three people: 'The German' Thomas Middlehoff, the boy's mother Sissy and his older sister Olivia. They are uniquely different characters, each given a distinctive voice by the author's adept use of language. Parts of the novel read as vividly as a well acted-out play. However, I constantly felt I was missing some context necessary to fully understand the story. Perhaps it's because as the reader I was an outsider in this close-knit town, or because I lack a working knowledge of the Irish psyche and the last two centuries of its history. This historical context is especially relevant as the final third of the novel strengthens the symbolism equating this one family's loss with that of Ireland or post-war Europe. Nonetheless, it was an interesting, intense exploration of whether love, of another person or of one's country, can ever fully help make something broken whole again.

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