Needing to reconnect with the baby she gave up for adoption years earlier, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer uncovers devastating family secrets before her bond with a young white misfit scandalizes her racially torn community. - (Baker & Taylor)

Needing to reconnect with the baby she gave up for adoption years earlier, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer uncovers devastating family secrets before her bond with a young white misfit scandalizes her racially torn community. 100,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Recommended by O Magazine * GMA * Elle * Marie Claire * Good Housekeeping * NBC News * Shondaland * Chicago Tribune * Woman's Day * Refinery 29 * Bustle * The Millions * New York Post * Parade * Hello! Magazine * PopSugar * and more!

“The Kindest Lie is a deep dive into how we define family, what it means to be a mother, and what it means to grow up Black...beautifully crafted.” —JODI PICOULT

"A fantastic story...well-written, timely, and oh-so-memorable."—Good Morning America

“The Kindest Lie is a layered, complex exploration of race and class." —The Washington Post

Every family has its secrets...

It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a heart-stopping incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

Powerful and unforgettable, The Kindest Lie is the story of an American family and reveals the secrets we keep and the promises we make to protect one another.

Named a Most Anticipated book by O Magazine * GMA * Elle * Marie Claire * Good Housekeeping * NBC News * Shondaland * Chicago Tribune * Woman's Day * Refinery 29 * Bustle * The Millions * New York Post * Parade * Hello! Magazine * PopSugar * and more!

'the Kindest Lie is a deep dive into how we define family, what it means to be a mother, and what it means to grow up Black...beautifully crafted.' 'JODI PICOULT

"A fantastic story...well-written, timely, and oh-so-memorable."'Good Morning America

'The Kindest Lie is a layered, complex exploration of race and class." 'The Washington Post

A promise could betray you.

It's 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He's eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to'and was forced to leave behind'when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she'd never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town's already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

Powerful and revealing, The Kindest Lie captures the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and offers both an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.

Booklist Reviews

Generational secrets, class divides, motherhood, and American life on the edge of political and economic change are all examined in Johnson's engaging debut. Ruth Tuttle and her husband, Xavier, are young Black professionals living in Chicago just after the election of President Barack Obama in 2008. When Xavier expresses his desire to start a family, Ruth, an engineer, confesses that she had a child when she was still in high school. Her revelation puts a strain on their marriage, and Ruth realizes that she must come to terms with her tumultuous past before moving forward. After avoiding her small Indiana hometown for years, Ruth returns to her grandmother's house, hoping to discover what happened to her son. As she reconnects with her grandmother, brother, and old friends and meets a lonely young boy nicknamed Midnight, what she finds is a town deeply impacted by the Great Recession, increasing racial tensions, and a lifetime of secrets that will change her future. Through well-developed characters, Johnson provides a realistic portrayal of middle America in the tumultuous era of economic collapse.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Anticipation runs high, supported by a sizable print run, for former television journalist Johnson's first novel. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Before she can start a family, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer, must reconcile with having given up the baby she had as a teenager. Leaving Chicago for her Indiana hometown, she explores family secrets, befriends a white boy, and watches racial tensions begin to tear her town apart. A debut novel with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal Reviews

DEBUT Young marrieds Ruth and Xavier are educated Black professionals living well in a gentrified Chicago neighborhood. It's 2008, Barack Obama has won the presidential election, and their townhouse is flooded with friends who feel that the election foretells hope for the Black community's future. Xavier wants to start a family on the basis of such hope, but Ruth is hiding her past—she had a baby at age 17, the summer before she headed to Yale on a scholarship. To protect her promising future, her grandmother, brother, and pastor secretly found the baby a home through a sleazy lawyer. Ruth feels it's time to tell Xavier about her baby, little knowing it will drive a wedge between them. She escapes alone to the poverty-stricken Indiana town where she grew up, hoping to locate the son she abandoned. Her arrival with her Yale degree, designer clothes, and expensive car stirs resentment and sets off a chain of events that awakens Ruth's awareness of her Black heritage, her humble origins, and what family really means. Through unlikely connections, old and new, she is driven to find her boy. VERDICT Johnson's debut novel will appeal to a wide range of readers, who will be drawn into the despairing lives of her characters. Ruth's predicament comes to a most satisfying conclusion.—Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO