Telling Secrets Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Telling Secrets Plot Summary

Preview of Telling Secrets Summary:

Frederick Buechner, author, professor and ordained Episcopal minister, writes about his personal battle in overcoming the damage done by a lifetime of burying the past in "Telling Secrets." As a young boy in New Jersey, Frederick and his younger brother are faced with the suicide of their father. Buechner's father was an alcoholic and had a hard time holding down a job. Buechner's mother belittled and emasculated her husband as continuous battles waged between the couple. Their mother, apparently angry and feeling betrayed, does not hold either a funeral or a memorial service for her husband. She whisks her two sons, her mother and herself away to Bermudaj presumably to begin a new life and forget the past.

Although she does not vocalize that conversation about their father is taboo, the boys quickly sense that their questions or comments about their dead father are not welcomed. Mrs. Buechner is...
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