The Secret-Keepers’ Stories by Joyce Lewis-Andrews

The Deep, Dark Secret about Nothing Good forces Ethel’s maternal family out of their roles as accomplished storytellers into reluctant, secret-keeping accomplices, especially when her daughter starts snooping.

In her debut work of creative nonfiction, The Secret-Keepers’ Stories, Joyce Lewis-Andrews (Ethel’s daughter) explores the question of identity through the art of family storytelling, chronicling her Pittsburgh family’s three-generational journey — from industrial migration to the middle class— through the lens of twentieth-century innovations, oral histories, and events that shaped their past.

Set at the confluence of Northern Appalachia and the American Rust Belt, The Secret-Keepers’ Stories creates a portrait of ten working-class Pittsburghers and the immigrant matriarch who raised them to become part of what would become known as America’s Great Generation. Part memoir and part biography, this work is a tribute to the resilience and fallibility of the storylines, storytellers, and secrets that define who we are, who we’re not, who we were, and who we still might be.

Click here for a sneak preview of their stories.

This work of creative nonfiction is the debut novel of Joyce Lewis-Andrews, the last of their listeners.