Indelicate Deception

Caty Robertson arrives in the world physically fragile and abundantly loved, destined to grow tall and strong like her parents. She’s raised in the glow of Daddy’s generous embrace of humanity and his entertaining stories about Caty’s mother, Lenore. But Caty doesn’t remember her mother, and Daddy is vague about the reasons for her absence.

By young adulthood, Caty creates an idealized vision of her parents’ romance in Berkeley of the early ’70s, a hotbed of social and political change. Lenore is a brilliant law student, eager to tackle every injustice. Roy is an injured Vietnam War veteran and talented chef who dreams of owning a restaurant. The lovers are unlike each other in every way—race, class, politics, and values—yet they soar high on their love, powering through money troubles, his PTSD, and her family’s disapproval of their relationship.

Why, then, does Lenore leave Caty and her father? The separation was amicable, Daddy says, and although they’ve lost touch, he’s sure “she’s livin’ a good life” wherever she is. Sensing more to the story, fearing a hurt greater than Daddy lets on, Caty undertakes a secret investigation to protect his feelings. As she begins her search in earnest, she uncovers startling, unimaginable details—but the facts will remain elusive until she can find her mother and demand the truth.

Indelicate Deception celebrates the unbreakable bond of love between a father and his daughter while unraveling the self-deceptive path of a woman who could have had it all.

Award-winning author, dance artist, and lawyer V.S. Kemanis has published six novels of legal suspense and courtroom drama, drawing on her career in New York's criminal justice system. She has written dozens of stories collected in five volumes, the latest of which, Your Pick: Selected Stories, received the Eric Hoffer Award and was a Montaigne Medal finalist. A California native and graduate of UC Berkeley, Kemanis has long made New York her home.