Set in 1959, Lies We Tell Ourselves follows the integration of Jefferson High School in Virginia. Specifically, we see how two girls — Sarah Dunbar and Linda Hairston — witness the events around them, and learn to coexist.
“For eighteen years I’ve believed what other people told me about what was right and what was wrong. From now. I’m deciding.”
Sarah Dunbar and her younger sister, Ruth, have been selected to integrate at Jefferson High, along with about a dozen other black students. Sarah agrees to do this, despite the very real threat of danger, because she desperately wants a good education — which can’t really be obtained at her current, massively underfunded school. Linda Hairston, on the other hand, has gone to Jefferson for three years, and hates that her senior year has been delayed and disrupted by the integration. Linda’s hatred of the black students — and she does hate them, at least at first — comes from her racist, overpowering father, who writes for the local paper.
A major part of the story, of course, deals with Sarah and Linda fighting while eventually learning to understand each other. There’s a whole other subplot that I won’t spoil for you, although the direction it’s heading becomes obviously pretty early in the story. It’s a very violent story, although the author writes in the afterword that some instances of integration during this time happened even more turbulently. While aimed at a teen audience, Lies We Tell Ourselves will appeal to adults as well. I also feel like this book ought to be taught in high schools, since it teaches important lessons and could really be life changing for a student.
