Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us by Colleen René

The debut novel Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us from author Colleen René is a wonderful work in balancing tension and intrigue with the complexity of compassion. Two sisters, Gaby and Mathilde, paint a tragic story of their relationship with one charming man and the dark night that changed their lives forever.

The phone rang in the black night, ripping Mathilde out of her frosted quiet thoughts. She let the ring fill the trailer and build pressure into the walls. A shot of cool pierced through her sternum, expanding underneath the skin of her belly. Dread. The icy floor stung her toes and she wrapped a flannel robe around her body, seeking out the boiling tone in the kitchen. She gripped the receiver to her ear and heard a bloodless voice:

“Al allait mourrir. Al allait mourrir.”

“Who?”

“I’m sorry.” Her sister wept.

We meet these characters at the crux of big change as Gaby, currently imprisoned for the murder of her husband, is up for parole and Mathilde who has been raising her sister’s daughter, Eva, moves them to Montreal in hopes she’ll be far from her mother’s influence.

The novel is written in alternating chapters through all three women’s point-of-views, and the truth of what happened that night and why is cleverly unravelled. René keeps us guessing but slowly, we come to realize whose narrative we should trust, and the toxic familial history that has led us here. These characters aren’t the most likeable — we’re dealing with three complex women all struggling with who they are, what they want from life, and what they feel they might owe each other. But, they are very real and that authenticity fills the book like a rush of cold wind.

René forces us to reexamine our initial judgements as we come to know and understand the two sisters and their estranged relationship, neither of whom is always easy to sympathize with, and the man whose death holds fast at the centre of it all. Meanwhile, teenage Eva is finally in a place where she’s anonymous and can reinvent herself (despite not speaking French like the rest of her family) out of the shadow of her family’s tragedy. Through her, we grapple with the way trauma can be passed down in slips and pauses, a slow trickle, and that grip that keeps us tethered to our mothers and the secrets of the past — even when everything we know tells us not to trust it, to resist —perseveres.

Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us is a beautifully written family drama and compelling mystery that takes us from rural Acadian Nova Scotia to the arts and university districts of Montreal. A captivating debut that adeptly excavates the murky connection between sisters and the messiness of the human heart.

A captivating debut that adeptly excavates the murky connection between sisters and the messiness of the human heart.

Colleen René is originally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Concordia University. Her work has appeared in journals across Canada, and her short story All That’s Left won Dalhousie University’s James DeMille Short Story Prize in 2016. More recently, her short story Growing Pains was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in April 2022. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us was released in August of 2023 by Tidewater Press.

Publisher: Tidewater Press (Aug 15, 2023)
Paperback 5.5″ x 8.5″ | 272 pages
ISBN: 978-1-990160-22-6

Lindsay Gloade-Raining Bird

Lindsay Gloade-Raining Bird is a mixed-Cree writer, editor and book hoarder. She currently hosts the Nimbus podcast Book Me where she talks local books and interviews authors. She holds a degree in English literature from Dalhousie and her writing has been published in The Coast and CBC among others. She can usually be found relentlessly online at @birdykinsreads. Her first children’s book Snow Day is upcoming at Nimbus for Fall 2024.