Book Review: Perception by Maureen Hartman

Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

A searing family drama—a story of secrets coming to light and the ever present possibility of new beginnings

“But once a mulatta, always a mulatta—that hateful word lived just below the skin. One more label for her to wear.”

Mia is “emotionally stunted,” or so her psychologist girlfriend Kali says. After losing her mother in Haiti and moving in with her estranged father Ellis in Indiana as a young adult, she’s learned to hide all vulnerabilities and keep thoughts and secrets to herself. But when her half-brother TJ calls for the first time in years begging her to return to the family estate in Meridian where their father is in the hospital with a stroke, Mia’s carefully constructed walls begin to crack. 

The emotional distance she keeps between herself and her girlfriend begins to crumble. The tense resentment between her and her father—who left her and her mother in Haiti and never showed Mia affection as a child—wavers when she learns that she’s listed as his next of kin and primary contact. In the chaos of this health emergency, strange, long-held secrets emerge and shift Mia’s understanding of herself. 

“It all made sense now. That was why he preferred being called Ellis over Papa. The reason he’d taken her in. Daughter or not, she was nothing more to him than a charity. Her heart might have broken at that moment had she not already steeled it against him.”

In the present, Mia returns to her bed-ridden father and his side of the family; in the past, she lives out a traumatic childhood both in Haiti and the United States. In weaving together these two timelines, the book captures a life, or fragments of a life, in the process of reconstituting itself. 

Mia is both things: the powerful young woman and the confused adult. She commands executive marketing teams, but sacrifices her career to be with her girlfriend; she is a traumatized young girl who suffers violence, neglect, and the absence of a loving father. She is someone who must integrate all these identities. 

The book follows Mia on a personal excavation of her inner life and the events that shaped her. As she reexamines formative moments—for instance, the cold greeting she receives upon arriving in her father’s home after losing her mother—their contours and meanings begin to change. This depth of psychology, revealing both the possibility of changing a worldview and the fractured, imperfect perspectives we all have, makes for a riveting character study.

“She gazed across the lake and squeezed Kali’s hand, thinking of how much good there was in her life when all she’d been focused on was the bad.”

Perception lives up to its name in more ways than one. Beyond nuanced characterization and psychology, the book integrates lengthy extracts from Ellis’s diaries, further fragmenting the narrative perspectives and creating space for multiple readings and reassessments of the past. It triumphs in capturing the complex dynamics of a family and showing how unclear reality really is. 

The ups, downs, and inscrutable in-betweens of numerous relationships are tracked, from Mia and Ellis and Mia and Kali to Mia and her brother TJ, her grandmothers, best friends, and deceased Haitian mother. Each relationship has its own life and distinct tenor, creating a rich texture for the novel. That said, while individual storylines are fresh and intriguing, the arc of the plot is familiar: a simple, inevitable movement toward a neat resolution. This can make it feel a bit too expected at times.

A thought-provoking dive into a turbid family, Perception is filled with the authentic struggles, mistakes, and discoveries of a young woman determined to reassess how she exists in the world.

Thank you for reading Warren Maxwell’s book review of Perception by Maureen Hartman! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Perception by Maureen Hartman appeared first on Independent Book Review.