The Content Reader

  This week's book is a very interesting nonfiction account on Susan Swingler's quest to find out why her father left her (and her mother) when she was four. A fascinating account of family drama and the search for a father's love. The House of Fiction by Susan Swingler "Susan Swingler is the step-daughter of one of Australia's most revered writers - the English-born Elizabeth Jolley. But behind that simple statement is a lifetime of family lies and deceptions that started when Susan's father, Leonard Jolley, left his marriage and four-year-old Susan to make a new life with Elizabeth in Australia. Susan had no inkling of what had happened until she came across perplexing revelations at the age of 21. The House of Fiction tells the story of Susan's quest to discover the truth about her father. As she traces clues to a better understanding of Leonard, she inadvertently unravels a intricate fiction created by Elizabeth to deceive Leonard's family back in E...

If I had read this book during Nonfiction November I would have mentioned it under week 4 - Stranger than fiction.  This is a true story of a woman's search for her father and the question why he left her and her mother and broke off all communications.  "Susan Swingler is the step-daughter of one of Australia's most revered writers - the English-born Elizabeth Jolley. But behind that simple statement is a lifetime of family lies and deceptions that started when Susan's father, Leonard Jolley, left his marriage and four-year-old Susan to make a new life with Elizabeth in Australia. Susan had no inkling of what had happened until she came across perplexing revelations at the age of 21. The House of Fiction tells the story of Susan's quest to discover the truth about her father. As she traces clues to a better understanding of Leonard, she inadvertently unravels a intricate fiction created by Elizabeth to deceive Leonard's family back in England." Susan...