History Literature / MoreThanYoullEverKnow

* SecretOtherFamily: The basic premise of the novel is a GenderInvertedTrope take on this. Interestingly, the way the story plays out ends up being a sort of {{Deconstruction}} of the gender inversion, demonstrating why women generally ''don't'' do this. Family life is great, but it's also demanding and taxing -- particularly for women, mothers. There are virtually ''no'' women (and only a few men, for that matter) who would want to take a break from the duties of family life to go do ''more'' family life somewhere else. Women want their affairs ''to be affairs'' -- a respite, a part of their life that's very different than the drudgery of home life. Lore ends up in a second marriage by playing her BusinessTripAdultery as an ExaggeratedTrope, but the emotional quality of it is still more like an affair.

* UnreliableExpositor: On the softer, merely biased side, Cassie comments that Lore romanticizes the story of her affair, adds in tangents about how monogamy is unnatural and not a cultural universal, and doesn't seem to feel that guilty about it. On the outright lying side, Penelope warns Cassie to consider Lore's staggering track record of lying.
-->'''Penelope:''' Don't forget, Lore is a very good liar.

* SecretOtherFamily: The basic premise of the novel is a GenderInvertedTrope take on this. Interestingly, the way the story plays out ends up being a sort of {{Deconstruction}} of the gender inversion, demonstrating why women don't do this. Family life is great, but it's also demanding and taxing -- particularly for women, mothers. There are virtually ''no'' women (and only a few men, for that matter) who would want to take a break from the duties of family life to go do ''more'' family life somewhere else. Women want their affairs ''to be affairs'' -- a respite, a part of their life that's very different than the drudgery of home life. Lore ends up in a second marriage by playing her BusinessTripAdultery as an ExaggeratedTrope, but the emotional quality of it is still more like an affair.

* SexIsLiberation: Lore sees her affair as liberating and bringing out the best in her, and this benefits her family back home. Everyone else sees it as enormously selfish and with huge collateral damage for everyone else.

* GriefInducedSplit: InvertedTrope. [[spoiler:How do you forgive your wife for having a secret second husband? Lore and and Fabian bond again by working together on the shared project of keeping their teenage son out of jail after he committed a murder.]]

* BestFriendsInLaw: Fabian and Sergio are childhood friends. They later marry sisters Lore and Marta.

* HappilyMarried: Played with in regards to Lore and Fabian's marriage. Lore is happy with her husband, and rather less happy with her experience of marriage. This is not a shortcoming on Fabian's part -- it's just the banality of everyday life and parenting, somewhat exacerbated by the stresses of the economic downturn. Lore loves Fabian and doesn't want to leave him. She doesn't want to trade him for another man (although she occasionally wants to trade him for the newlywed version of himself). But she also wants a temporary escape from this life from time to time.

* NearAndDearBabyNaming: Though it's too early to confirm it via ultrasound, Lore has a strong sense that her third baby is a girl, and names her Marta after her sister and best friend.

* SecretOtherFamily: The basic premise is a GenderInvertedTrope. As Cassie discusses, "Relationship fraud is typically a man's crime"--although that's an off-base comment since Lore committed bigamy, ''not'' relationship fraud (marrying someone to scam them out of their money). The way the story plays out, though, is not particularly gendered. Plenty of women have affairs along the same lines as Lore's -- wanting to temporarily escape the drudgery of home life, but not leave it altogether. The step from affair to bigamy is basically just taking the BusinessTripAdultery and playing it as an ExaggeratedTrope.
* SeductionProofMarriage: DeconstructedTrope. Their brother-in-law Sergio describes Lore and Fabian's marriage as, "pretty good, better than most couples we knew." It's not ''flawless'', but within the realm of what can reasonably be expected amid the banality of daily life, they're pretty good. When Lore falls for Andres, the point isn't the difference between the men, it's the difference in the structure of the relationships. Sneaking away to meet your lover on a trip is inherently sexier and more exciting than the drudgery of home life. Andres shows Lore more attention than Fabian does; this is not a feature of the men's personalities, it's a feature of the roles of new boyfriend vs longstanding husband. Andres is new, and he brings out new sides of Lore; Fabian can be many things, but he cannot be new after knowing Lore for over a decade.

* TakingTheHeat: [[spoiler:When Cassie gets too close to the truth, MamaBear Lore tells her that ''she'' killed Andres to throw her off the trail.]] [[spoiler:Then Cassie deduces PapaBear Fabian took the fall for killing Andres to protect his son Gabriel, who actually did it.]] [[spoiler:Then Mateo confesses to Cassie it was ''him''. By this point there's been a Lore POV chapter identifying Gabriel as the culprit, so it initially looks like Mateo is also covering for Gabriel -- but then Mateo says that ''Gabriel'' covered for ''Mateo'', beginning with them telling their parents Gabriel had done it.]]

* ArchWords: "The constantly sinking land." Mexico City is built on the lake bed of Lake Texcoco, and it's not very geologically stable. Lore and Andres's relationship is built both on Mexico City, and on a shaky foundation.

At its center is a GenderInvertedTrope of SecretOtherFamily. In the mid 1980s, Dolores "Lore" had one family in Laredo, Texas, US -- first husband Fabian Rivera and their twin sons Gabriel and Mateo -- and another in Mexico City -- second husband Andres Russo, sometimes accompanied by stepchildren Penelope and Carlitos. And then in early August 1986, [[ADeadlyAffair Andres was shot and killed, and Fabian convicted of his murder]].

In 2017, TrueCrime journalist Cassie Bowman becomes interested in the case, and begins interviewing as many involved parties as she can, decades after the events.

* TheEighties: The way Lore's double life goes down is very shaped by the events of the time--the economic downturn, and then the Mexico City earthquake of 1985.

* BusinessTripAdultery: Lore is in international banking. For her Texas bank, located right on the US-Mexico border, means lots of trips back and forth. Lore's relationship with Andres begins as a flirtation one night far from home. As their relationship progresses to marriage, it it's played as an ExaggeratedTrope. The whole scenario is enabled because both men know her job requires so much travel between the two places, so they don't bat an eye at it.
* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Invoked with Lore lies to Andres and claims her parents are dead in order to avoid MeetTheInLaws.

* EarlyPersonalitySigns: 12-year-old Mateo spontaneously becomes vegetarian after learning about meat processing industry. The adults in his family think this is VegetarianForADay, a [[ItWillNeverCatchOn phase he will soon outgrow and forget]]. Mateo grows up to be Dr Rivera, KindlyVet, and still a vegetarian.
-->'''Maggie:''' Oh, he's great! He's so good with the animals. Even the real scaredy-cats that shiver and shed all over the place end up loving him.

* HappilyMarried: Played with in regards to Lore and Fabian's marriage. Lore is happy with her husband, and rather less happy with her experience of marriage. This is not a shortcoming of Fabian's -- it's just the banality of everyday life and parenting, somewhat exacerbated by the stresses of the economic downturn. Lore loves Fabian and doesn't want to leave him. She doesn't want to trade him for another man (although she occasionally wants to trade him for the newlywed version of himself). But she also wants an temporary escape from this life from time to time.

* LoveTriangle: Averted as nearly as it can be in a book structured around an affair. Fabian and Andres are contrasted very little. They're both solid guys who could make good partners. The point isn't the men -- the point is the structure of the relationships. Sneaking away to meet your lover on a trip is inherently a sexier, more exciting, than the drudgery of home life. Andres shows Lore more attention than Fabian does; this is a feature of the roles of new boyfriend vs husband of over a decade, not of either man's character.
-->'''Lore narrating:''' Perhaps not every affair is about lack in the primary relationship; perhaps some are about a complement. Perhaps multiple relationships can illuminate different parts of the self, like a prism turned first this way, then that, toward the light. Perhaps to love and allow love from only one person at a time is to trap the self into a single, frozen version, and it's this that makes us look elsewhere.
* MamaBear: [[spoiler:Lore is 11 or 12 weeks pregnant, and cramping and bleeding. She goes to the doctor, and they both think she's miscarrying. But then they find a faint heartbeat and it looks like the baby might pull through. Then later that day, a livid Andres--GenderInvertedTrope of WomanScorned--confronts Lore about her extensive duplicity. He shoves Lore--not enough force to be dangerous most of the time, but enough to be dangerous to a pregnancy that's only holding on by a thread to begin with. A wave of terror for her baby seizes Lore, then GoryDiscretionShot.]] [[spoiler:Except GoryDiscretionShot is just a storytelling technique, not an actual event than can occur. After he shoves Lore, Andres step back, afraid of his own potential for violence, and both lovers leave the encounter alive.]] [[spoiler:And then in a second fit of material devotion, Lore -- along with [[PapaBear Fabian]] -- did everything they could to protect Gabriel after he confesses to her that he killed Andres.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: Marta and Sergio wanted children, but were infertile. They ended up being the [[CoolUncle Cool Aunt and Uncle]] with a ranch to their nephews Gabriel and Mateo. They've happy to watch them when their parents are out of town. After Fabian is in prison and the teenage twins are furious at Lore for her double life, they move in with Marta and Sergio.
* PlotParallel: Lore carries on a relationship with Andres, not telling him about her husband and kids. Cassie carries a relationship with Duke, not telling him about her father and brother.

* SecretOtherFamily: The basic premise is a GenderInvertedTrope. As Cassie discusses, "Relationship fraud is typically a man's crime"--although that's an off-base comment since Lore committed bigamy, ''not'' relationship fraud (marrying someone to scam them out of their money). The way the story plays out, though, is not particularly gendered. Plenty of women have affairs along the same lines as Lore's -- wanting to temporarily escape the drudgery of home life, but not leave it altogether. The step from affair to bigamy basically just taking the BusinessTripAdultery and playing it as an ExaggeratedTrope.
* SexIsLiberation: Lore sees her affair as liberating and brining out the best in her, and this benefits her family back home. Everyone else sees it as enormously selfish and with huge collateral damage for everyone else.
* TakingTheHeat: [[spoiler:When Cassie gets too close to the truth, MamaBear Lore tells her that ''she'' killed Andres to throw her off the tract.]] [[spoiler:Then Cassie deduces PapaBear Fabian took the fall killing Andres to protect his son Gabriel, who did it.]] [[spoiler:Then Mateo confessed to Cassie it was ''him''. By this point there's been a Lore POV chapter identifying Gabriel as the culprit, so it initially looks like Mateo is also covering for Gabriel -- but then Mateo says that ''Gabriel'' covered for ''Mateo'', beginning with them telling their parents Gabriel had done it.]]
* UnreliableExpositor: On the softer, merely biased side, Cassie comments that Lore romanticizes the story of her affair, adds in tangents about how monogamy is unnatural and not a cultural universal, doesn't seem to feel that guilty about it. On the outright lying side, Penelope warns Cassie to consider Lore's staggering track record of lying.

* EarlyPersonalitySigns: 12-year-old Mateo spontaneously becomes vegetarian after learning about meat processing industry. The adults in his family think this is VegetarianForADay, a [[ItWillNeverCatchOn phase he will soon outgrow and forget]]. Mateo grows up to be Dr Rivera, veterinarian, and still a vegetarian.

* FriendToAllLivingThings: Mateo grows up to be a successful vet.
-->'''Maggie:''' Oh, he's great! He's so good with the animals. Even the real scaredy-cats that shiver and shed all over the place end up loving him.