During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia...

In complete denial that she is pregnant, straight-A student and star athlete Devon Davenport leaves her baby in the trash to die, and after the baby is discovered, Devon is accused of attempted murder.

The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities -- whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide -- is no fairy tale. In this book, the author sheds new light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial -- the keeping of "open secrets." The author shows that conspiracies of silence...

"It's a book about our denial of death as a species (the possibility if not probability of extinction), how religion has fueled that denial, and how religion might also help break through that denial and find hope"--