Just how long can you live knowing you are living a lie?
For most of us, we never will know because we never have to be anything other than what we were born to be.
For some of us, despite knowing we are living a lie, we just get on and live the life that has been given to us rather than live the one we would dearly like. We do this because it is too costly, too dangerous, too difficult, wildly impractical or simply impossible.
The Award is about one such person. Having resigned himself to a life he would not have chosen had he been given the opportunity, Matthew Gibson hid the truth deep inside and lived the lie very successfully. Indeed, he became so good at it, he almost forgot it was a lie………..
………until that which was hidden could no longer remain out of sight. It is exposed in an unusual way. For a man who allowed the prisoner within a brief freedom in the books he wrote in her name, the success draws an award, and one that he felt he had to accept. Encouraged to collect it in person, he realised that the person to whom it was given is not the lie he has been living.
Despite all the reasons in the world not to face the truth – too costly, too many to hurt, too dangerous, too impractical and damn near impossible, he decided to face the truth and see what would happen.
Most of us are spared such a decision.
Ask yourself – if this was you, who would stand by you?
How would you cope?
Would you actually do it?
In this story, Tanya Allan creates no mysterious aliens, no devious spies or hardened criminals to thwart; no magical transformations and a real risk of not even having a happy ending. Instead, the people she introduces are very real in so many ways. There’s probably a little bit of each of us in one or other of them. Serious introspection into what makes us tick reveals attitudes and values of which even we might be ashamed, while other might make us cry.
Some serious questions are asked, I wonder how well you would answer them…….