LIES In BONE by Natalie Symons – Psychological Mystery, Contemporary Social Issues, Family Saga

From the first paragraph of Lies in Bone, Natalie Symons’ debut novel delves into human darkness.

Lies in Bone, set in a factory town in 1986 Pennsylvania after its industrial boom faded, is told from the point of view of a girl who struggles with more than usual teenage angst. Symons relentlessly reveals the fear, ignorance, and poverty which often suffuse a community left behind.

The residents of Slippery Elm, Pennsylvania, were bewildered and ill-equipped to deal with their new reality when the steel mill shut down seven years before, leaving many unemployed and discouraged.

Frances Coolidge, known as Frank, knows the struggle of being left behind.

This fifteen-year-old has helped her hapless father raise her young sister, Boots. She had to step up after her pregnant mother left their family. No matter that Boots was an infant, no matter that they needed her, she abandoned them.

Close to Christmas, 1986, thirty-four-year-old Chuck moves Frank and a six-year-old Boots from the only home they’ve ever known in Troy, New York, to his hometown, Slippery Elm. Frank has no idea what to expect. She does know she doesn’t want to move — and she does know fear. Her mother is gone, moved away to Florida to fight her demons, according to Chuck. Their grandmother, Ruth, lives in Slippery Elm, but Ruth has cancer, and their father has decided they need to move in and help care for her.

After the move, Chuck’s family history begins to surface in bits and pieces, and Frank questions his painful secrets.

She learns that Chuck had a younger brother, Danny, who mysteriously disappeared. Ruth mourns for Danny, her lost son, seeing Chuck as a monster who should have disappeared instead. She calls Chuck a liar, and prays for God to have mercy on his soul, leaving Frank with the simple question, why?

Frank is haunted by her own family trauma, the memory of her mother’s departure. Chuck won’t discuss it, nor will he talk about his childhood. He drinks too much and frequently disappears for hours without explanation.

What ensues is a tightly written, fast-paced tale that reveals a side of humanity driven by madness, lust, zealotry, and more. And just when a metaphoric light glimmers at the end of the tunnel, it suddenly explodes.

The motley cast of well-developed characters melds into Frank’s past and future, creating a story that stretches readers’ imaginations. The more Frank learns, the more she realizes that things are not always as they seem, that random events have hidden meanings, and that actions from the past exist as long as there is someone left to remember them.

Lies in Bone, in some ways reminiscent of Dennis Lehane’s work, will likely have a place among classic neo-noir books — and  Natalie Symons seems destined to join Lehane among the ranks of celebrated writers of the genre.

For readers who appreciate well-written, well-plotted psychological mysteries that dive deep into the human condition, Natalie Symons’ Lies in Bone is a keeper.

Lies in Bone by Natalie Symons won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Somerset Awards for Literary & Contemporary Fiction.