Summary

In Chapter 7, in present-tense narration, the author describes how, during her time investigating the story of Kambiz, she encounters some friends of Maman Moti. During a dinner conversation, she says, they discuss the nature of lies and lying, with the conclusion that “we can lie in service of our formative story, but not in opposition to it” (249). To do so, she comments in narration, would be too potentially damaging to fundamental views of the world and of the self. There is also conversation about how truth is culturally dependent, and about how the author’s earlier published fiction felt untrue to Maman Moti’s friends. The author then discusses looking at some of her earlier unpublished work and seeing some truths about herself that she had not realized. She also discusses that part of her reason for this conversation was to find...