The Secret Life of Families: Truth-Telling, Privacy, and Reconciliation in a Tell-All Society

This is an excellent book. Evan Imber-Black masterfully intertwines stories, experiences, and insights, allowing the reader to discover the profound power that secrets can hold. The stigmatization of secrets in our society has urged many people to be open in excess, which can be just as harmful as secrecy. This book helps to bring a sense of balance onto the scene. Imber-Black leads us through the secret keeping and opening process, drawing from her years of experience as a family therapist. She defines different kinds of secrets, writes about what kinds of secrets should be kept and what kinds of secrets should be opened, how and when they should be opened, and to whom. She explains how society shapes its citizens' views and behaviors surrounding secrecy. Perhaps most importantly, she talks about the ways that secrets can affect the lives of those who are holding the secret and also those who are outside of the secret. Individualism may be a prized virtue in our society, but one cannot help but be affected by family secrets and the stories that they hold. This book is well written and easy to read. There is relatively no technical jargon and the flow of ideas is easy to follow. There is some slight repetition, and expansion upon detail which lend to the length of the book, but I think these serve to broaden the reader's perspective and strengthen the overall message. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone who has an interest in understanding life and making steps towards personal growth and healthier relationships. -E. Rootvik

I adopted this book for a sociology course that I teach on the family. I had never used this before and found it to be a really intelligent and insightful examination of the role of secrets in family dynamics and relationships in general. Although the book is written by a psychologist, as a sociologist, I deeply appreciated the author's ability to identify social, macro-level factors that play an instrumental role in secret making, secret keeping, and revealing secrets. She is mindful of how gender, social class, ethnicity/race, religion, sexual orientation, and historical events and contexts play a part in secrets. I used the book because much of our presentation of our family is impression management--projecting the most positive image for public view. The reality, however, is that families are imperfect, and we harbor lots of secrets to try to mask our imperfections. This book does a beautiful job of unveiling these dynamics, with appropriate specific examples to illustrate. There is something there for everyone to identify with.

This book is well written, it is unlike other books of its genre because, it is not full of psychological jargon. It also approaches family issues with a great deal for sensitivity for the individual's need. Imber-Black does not take a one size fits all approach to dealing with family secrets. Imber-Black encourages the reader to take time and thing about the events surrounding the secret. I feel that it is this approach that set Imber-Black's book apart for other ideas on how to deal with secrets. This book is not just for the individual with a history of secrets, it can be helpful to all because, it imparts valuable information on how to deal with all types of family secrets. This book also has a built in series of questions at the end of all the chapters. C Lee

I read 'The Secret Life of Families' and was engrossed from the beginning. There may be other books written about family secrets but Evan Imber-Blacks is incredible! She has first hand experience helping individuals and their families uncover things can can lead to multi-generational issues. I find her intelligent, insightful and compassionate. This book is truly amazing. I highly recommend it to everyone!

I heard Evan Imber-Black interviewed on the Diane Rehm show on NPR March 19th. Fascinating comments and great call-in questions from radio listeners. She talked about the types of secrets: toxic, dangerous... and who "owns" a secret. Also she talked about how to go about revealing a secret. Great interview, sounds like an informative book.