1; (p. 167). She also displays some bitterness about the war and tells Sam not to make it out like it was a happy time (p. 236). Emmett is also reluctant to talk, but he doesn’t display the same anger as her mom. He is silent because it’s his way of loving Sam and protecting her. He tells her, “you can’t learn from the past. The main thing you learn from history is that you can’t learn from history. That’s what history is” (p. 226). Sam’s grandparents, on the other hand, are generous with their memories of their son. Their recollections show the inescapable force of desire in narrative, for they speak of a son they are proud to remember even though that might not be how he perceived himself. Sam recognizes that their loving memory and Irene’s negation result in a distorted representation. The “facts” she obtains are corrupted by absence and ignorance. How, then, is she to find the truth about her father?Sam begins to unravel more to the mystery when her mother allows her to read her father’s letters. While reading the letters, Sam is filled with a sense of disappointment – partly because he leaves out details that she believes are essential. She feels like he’s hiding something from her (p. 182). However, she realizes that the most likely reason for keeping the details out of his letters is that he wants to protect Irene from the horrors of the war. The letters are not complete, and therefore cannot be trusted as a absolute value of truth.A more complete version of the war and a more detailed look into the life of her father is found in the diary her grandparents give her to read. She finds that her father is not the Dwayne in the diary, not the same man she read about in the letters, nor is he the same person she heard about from her family. Sam hopes that the diary will share more personal insights, and it does just that. The diary ex...
