cover image The Truth and Other Hidden Things

The Truth and Other Hidden Things

Lea Geller. Lake Union, $14.95 (326p) ISBN 978-1-542-02653-6

Geller’s charming latest (after Trophy Life) follows the travails of an amiable if floundering middle-aged mother. Bells Walker learns she is unexpectedly pregnant the same day her husband, Harry, accepts a new professorship. At 43, Bells is not looking forward to caring for an infant alongside her demanding teenagers, Sam and Alice—nor is she excited about moving to upstate New York from Manhattan for Harry’s new job. But Harry quickly flourishes, and Sam and Alice settle easily into their new schools. Bells, meanwhile, is unraveling, and after she’s snubbed by the conceited mothers of Dutchess County, she begins an anonymous, gossipy blog chronicling the hipster lifestyle of the Hudson Valley, her neighbors’ romantic flings, and the insidious underbelly of the area’s hypercompetitive parenting culture: “if this is a utopia, it’s a fermented one,” she writes in one post. As her neighbors desperately try to uncover the identity of the anonymous blogger, Bells anguishes over whether she should continue with the endeavor. After the birth of baby Steven and the revelation that Bells’s blog could jeopardize Harry’s career, she has to confront her frustrations and decide what kind of person she wants to be. Driven by Bells’s wry and perceptive commentary, Geller’s narrative will have readers guessing and chuckling until the end. This engrossing romp makes for delightfully voyeuristic commentary on wealthy upstate life. (Apr.)