The Lies That Bind

A Novel

By: Edward De Angelo

Narrated by: Bruce Reizen

Executive VP Peter Morrison, divorced father of 13-year-old Sam, has always suspected - deep down inside - that Sam is not his biological child. This doubt gnaws at him until he seizes an opportunity to have their blood tested and his horrible fears confirmed. Furious, confused, and hurt, he lashes out at his ex-wife. She retaliates by refusing to let him see Sam, and by telling the boy that his beloved father is really no such thing.

In an effort to regain visitation rights, Peter sues for the return of years of generous child support payments. In the ensuing courtroom battle, he is forced to confront whether he can still be a father to a boy who has no biological or legal connection to him. This is a finely wrought, gripping page-turner that addresses the very definition of fatherhood - is it blood, money, or love?

©2002 Edward De Angelo (P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Mixed feelings about this one

I had mixed feelings about The Lies That Bind.

This is a book about a man who thinks the boy he has been raising is his son. But he has doubts, because he doesn’t find many traits, physical, mental, or emotional, that he can identify that he and the boy share. He begins to worry that his son is not his son. So, one time when he has to take the boy to the doctor for something, he arranges to have DNA tests done on both of them, and sure enough, it turns out that the boy is not his son.

By this time, he and his wife have already been divorced for several years. It’s pretty obvious even from the little we are told about them, that they were never a very good match to begin with. But what’s the main character, Peter, to do when he discovers that the boy he has been supporting all these years, and who he loves as if he is his own son anyway, isn’t actually his biological son?

The first thing he does is really dumb; he confronts his wife with what he has learned and physically attacks her, although I think he doesn’t hurt her much. He does scare her though, and she gets a restraining order and has his visitation rights cut off.

A friend suggests he should talk to a lawyer, so he does. But since he is not the boy’s parent, he has no parental rights to enforce. The only legal recourse he has is to sue for the return of all the child support he has been generously paying over the years. This doesn’t really solve his problem, though.

My mixed feelings come from sympathy for Peter at having lost his son. But I feel that many of his actions make the situation worse. He seems much too invested in the idea of the perfect family that he has constructed in his mind, and is a bit overly aggressive in trying to make his wife and son fit into it, whether they do or not. At one point his wife says that she divorced him (this was years before the DNA test) because he was trying to treat her as if he owned her. At first, I didn’t see it, but later it became clear that this did seem to be the case.

Mercifully, Peter is finally able to grow emotionally enough to be able to allow his ex-wife and son to be who they are. He drops the lawsuit before it has reached whatever conclusion it was heading for. He also finds another girlfriend, which may be the most helpful thing for him. And they all manage to find a less formal way of getting along.

It’s an interesting study of a problem which, while not the most common issue among parents and children, is probably a factor in many people’s lives (even absent the DNA tests), and is one which does not readily admit of easy solutions.