*What if author Leila Cobo was in your book club? How would she have responded to the questions?

Question 4: Do you consider Helena a loving person? Why or why not?

Helena is not loving or unloving. She is human. She is flawed. But she isn’t evil either. Mothers are usually portrayed as extremely loving, or the extreme opposite: Abusive and cruel. Helena was neither of these. Like so very, many women, she was a conflicted person, who suddenly finds her life interrupted by the birth of a child.

What do you think of Leila’s answer?

Question 5: Why Colombia? Do you think setting the story there added something to it? If so, what? Or, could the story have been set elsewhere and offered the same impact

This is not a novel about Colombia. It is a story about mothers and daughters and how the relationships between them define them. It is a story about finding and recognizing love. It is a story about balancing emotion with duty. But the story did need to take place in a setting starkly different from the United States. Being from Cali, if felt like a natural choice.

What do you think of Leila’s answer?

Wouldn’t you love to ask the author…

1. What was your inspiration for writing Tell Me Something True?

I started writing Tell Me Something True when I became pregnant with my first child. My mother lost her mother when she was only two years-old, and growing up without a mother was defining for her. I grew up hearing stories about her childhood and the mother she did not remember and it terrified me to think that if anything were to happen to me, my daughter would know nothing about me beyond what others told her. So, I actually began to keep a diary for my daughter to read when she got older. A diary that told her who I was and what she meant to me.

2. Did you intend for Helena’s ambivalence about her child to reflect those of women in general?

I did not conceive Helena that way, but most certainly, I think many, if not all mothers, have, at one point or another been torn about what is best for their child and what is best for them. Helena acknowledges a conflict that many prefer to put under the rug because it isn’t politically correct to voice anything but adoration for your children.

3. By making her plane crash, are you saying that Helena deserved to be punished for her adultery?

Absolutely not. Nor does the book pretend to judge her. But certainly, her daughter does judge her while other characters don’t. It is up to the reader to decide if he or she would have behaved like Helena did.