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Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between
Patty Appleton is making history. As one of the Senate’s first female Congressional Pages, she’s not only paving the way for other politically minded girls, she has a front-row seat to debates dividing the nation, especially around women’s rights and roles. The battle between the old ways and the new polarizes the women in Patty’s life, and she finds herself torn between traditional expectations—to be anobedient daughter aspiring to become a perfect wife—and questions new friends like fiercely feminist Simone encourage her to ask.
But the questions don’t stop at women’s rights: The Watergate scandal is intensifying. As evidence mounts that the White House engaged in crimes, smears, and cover-ups to manipulate an election, Patty worries her dad, a fundraiser for President Nixon, could somehow be involved. Determining truth from lies becomes ever more essential for the nation’s future—and for Patty’s as well.
Illustrated throughout with remarkable real-life images and headlines, this timely exploration of 1973—the year of Watergate hearings, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Roe v. Wade—unfolds through the story of a young woman driven to question everything as she learns to think for, and rely on, herself.
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About the Author
L. M. Elliott was an award-winning magazine journalist in Washington, DC, before becoming a New York Times bestselling author of historical and biographical young adult novels. Her works include Under a War-Torn Sky, Suspect Red, Hamilton and Peggy!, Walls, and Bea and the New Deal Horse, have won the Scott O’Dell, the VLA Cardinal Cup, and the Grateful American Book Prize for historical fiction, and been named NCSS/CBC Notables, Bank Street College of Ed. Bests, and Kirkus Bests. Visit her online at lmelliott.com.
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Book Club Guide
1. How did the real historical images included in the prologue and before each chapter inform and affect your reading?
2. Early in the book Patty declares “I haven’t experienced any discrimination or sexism” (p. 10). Is this true? How does her perspective change over the course of the book
3. Partisan tension and conflicting beliefs are seen in many of the novel’s relationships: Patty/Simone, Dot/Aunt Marjorie, fellow congressional pages Abe/Will. How does that impact their relationships? Do you believe “issues about equality and fairness transcend political partisanship” (p. 23)?
4. Many of the novel’s young characters are influenced by music from artists like Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Helen Reddy, and more. What role did music play in the book and in that historical time period? Have you heard the songs mentioned in the book? What do they mean to you? You can find a playlist of songs compiled by the author here.
5. Simone frequently quotes Gloria Steinem. In one instance she says, “feminism is about our being equal as we are, not having to become them” (p. 64). What role does feminism play in the characters’ lives? What does feminism mean to you?
6. How and why does Patty and Simone’s relationship change?
7. Patty keeps returning to the image of Maureen Dean silently sitting behind her husband during his testimony. What does Maureen symbolize to Patty? Does that change?
8. What does it mean to follow the truth wherever it leads (p. 186)? Who demonstrates this? Who works to hide the truth?
9. How do Abe and Will broaden Patty’s perception and affect her character development?
10. During Patty and Simone’s conversations, they reference Ladies Home Journal, Esquire, or Ms. magazines. Patty feels uneasy after reading a profile on Marilyn Monroe, “Hollywood’s tragic ‘angel of sex’…who inspired all manner of dreams in a man and fulfilled them with a ‘whispery voice’ and ‘a smile that promised “take me”‘” (pp. 175 and 198). What impact do these articles from very different media have on the characters’ concepts of self, sexuality, body image, and romance? Do you see similar cultural messaging today?
11. The novel has many undercurrent themes, including the question of consent—from the democratic principle of “consent of the governed” (a government’s right to use state power is justified and lawful only when the public is informed and consents) to gender-based violence (sexual, physical, mental, and economic harm inflicted in public or private—i.e. power and control over someone else using threats, discriminatory laws, coercion, manipulation, or denigrating labels and language). How do these things affect Patty? What about women today?
12. “Politics as usual” is frequently invoked as a way of excusing unethical or illegal acts or deflecting truth (p. 256). What does political loyalty mean to you? What should it look like? Can politics and truth coexist?
13. Patty and her mother both experience significant character development over the course of the story. How do their journeys align? How do they differ?
14. The two major historical threads throughout the book are the Watergate hearings and the progress of the ERA. How do these events connect thematically and historically?
15. Other significant realities depicted in the novel include 1973’s lingering racism and bitter divide over the Vietnam War. Julius and Will have important backstory and emotional challenges dictated by these issues. How do their narratives add to and interact with the overall story?
16. In the epilogue the author says: “Here we are, fifty years later, in similar storms” (p. 325). What similarities between 1973 and today do you see reflected in the novel’s events?
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