Lying - through to the end

This was a very powerful ending. With Slater before her AA meeting companions, she could not convince them that she was a compuslive lier suffering from epilepsy, but rather they thought she was in denial about her alcoholism. The Afterward, too, also ties up Slater's ententions with this book to present a first person view of epilepsy. ""Metaphor," she writes, "is the greatest gift of language, for through we can propel what are otherwise wordless experiences into shapes and sounds.

People love the truth. This is why books from the Da Vinci Code to Presidential biographies are so popular. People always want to know the truth. And Slater accurately points out that the truth is usually vielled by personal opinion and bias--even though the intentions are good. So I think for the purpose of this class, we should take from this book the same lesson we took from Mencken's article that simple acceptance of truth presented as truth cannot be accepted.