Reading this book has been quite an experience for me … wow! I was also raised in a Jewish family obsessed with honesty. However I never exactly managed to rise to the challenge. While Michael was a talker from an early age, I have always been quiet, and really struggled to say anything – either small talk or deeper conversation – for my entire life.
So I was mindblown to read about someone raised with the same family emphasis who actually did it – was honest at all times. In fact Michael Leviton is my new hero! I feel like he managed to say, at the age of eight, things I have agonized over for my whole life, and still do. Proclaiming his faults to childhood toughs so he couldn’t be bullied over them, and trying to get them to do the same … wow!
And Michael’s constant crying, in pubic – this is such a triumph, amidst a culture that looks down on it so much, especially for men. I’ve had a similar inclination, but always tried mightily and usually successfully to hold the tears back. Though I cry a lot at home, and have told countless people about the emotional and physical benefits of crying. So I am just in awe of the courage Michael showed in allowing himself to cry all his life!
To put it another way, nothing in the modern world has ever made much sense to me, but my main accomplishment has been to keep my mouth shut and try to not show how different I was or felt. I am not proud of this, and it was not deliberate … just how I responded, being an introvert, to the life I was born into.
I have always accepted social conventions, and figured it was my fault that I couldn’t figure out how to be more successful at them. I really admire how Michael listed and classified all the things people do that are less than honest.
My saving grace has been that I met and married someone like me … a man who was extremely honest. We have had quite a few ups and downs, but his deeply loving and caring nature is definitely what has kept me going.
Though I had to go through quite a lot to learn how to not be inappropriately controlling, which he bitterly resented, and I think would have eventually destroyed our marriage. See The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle, which saved our marriage.
Plus I’ve pursued countless classes, therapies and degrees related to emotional health, started many groups myself, all taking baby steps toward being more honest, and it has all helped.
When I was a teenager, back in the 70’s with my VW van, I put up a little sign in the van that said, “What am I really feeling and thinking?” I did this because it seemed like every time I talked to someone, I would realize afterwards there was something I wished I’d said, but it didn’t even occur to me to say it. I was quite detached from bringing what I was really feeling and thinking into my consciousness, let alone saying it.
The book is about the age old dilemma between “honesty” and being dishonest in the service of “caring,” as shown by Michael’s arguments with Eve. Admittedly, his family is an extreme example of being honest but not always nice, and she and her family are extreme examples of being caring but even more dishonest than necessary (at least she started out that way).
Has dishonesty gotten worse? I think it has … people being afraid to say “no,” for example, and “ghosting” others constantly. Rarely do people keep their word.
It is just a fascinating book, exploring the eternal dilemma of honesty vs. niceness, with the main ritual of Michael’s family being the annual family therapy camp … hilarious. Almost hard to even believe it’s true … it’s so funny that it seems made-up.
Can’t wait to see this as a movie!
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2021
