Line #3 Literature/MoreThanYoullEverKnow


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4	''More Than You'll Ever Know'' is a 2022 debut novel by Katie Gutierrez.
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6	At its center is a GenderInvertedTrope of SecretOtherFamily. Between 1983 and 1986, 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]].
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8	In 2017, TrueCrime journalist Cassie Bowman becomes interested in the story, and begins interviewing as many involved parties as she can.
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10	----
11	!! Tropes
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13	* TheEighties: The way Lore's double life goes down is very shaped by the events of the time--the peso devaluation, and the Mexico City earthquake of 1985.
14	* AmateurSleuth: Cassie is a journalist by trade, and is supposedly writing a story about the psychological aspects of Lore LivingADoubleLife. But -- as both Cassie and the audience know from the very beginning -- this affair ends with Andres being shot, placing a murder mystery at the heart of the story. Cassie wants to figure that out too.
15	* ArcWords: "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.
16	* BestFriendsInLaw: Fabian and Sergio are married to sisters Lore and Marta. Cassie is surprised to learn they're also childhood friends.
17	* BlameTheParamour: The case as initially presented -- Fabian killing Andres -- hinges on Fabian being angrier at Andres than Lore. From the beginning, Cassie thinks that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
18	-->'''Cassie:''' Let's say I did [what Lore did], though. And you found out like Fabian did. Who would you be angrier at--me or the other guy, who clearly didn't know about you, either?\
19	'''Duke:''' […] You. But maybe it would be easier to take it out on him. Someone I didn't love. You know?
20	* BusinessTripAdultery: Lore is in international banking. For her Texas bank, located right on the US-Mexico border, this means lots of trips back and forth. Lore's relationship with Andres begins as a flirtation one night far from home. 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.
21	* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Invoked when Lore lies to Andres and claims her parents are dead in order to avoid MeetTheInLaws.
22	* CorpseTemperatureTampering: Andres's time of death is determined by body temperature as between 9pm and midnight. [[spoiler:That method was not designed for Texas weather in August, on a day with record-breaking 117 degree heat.]]
23	* EarlyPersonalitySigns: 12-year-old Mateo spontaneously becomes vegetarian after learning about the 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.
24	-->'''Maggie:''' He's so good with the animals. Even the real scaredy-cats that shiver and shed all over the place end up loving him.
25	* EmasculatedCuckold: InvertedTrope. Multiple male {{Bit Character}}s throughout the story express understanding and sympathy for Fabian, arrested for killing his wife's other man.
26	* ExactWords: Lore lies extensively, and to make this palatable to herself, she sticks to lies of omission and ''technically'' true lies when she can.
27	-->'''Cassie's narration:''' Lore had a way of doing this, of making even the lies truthful. She had done it with Andres and Fabian, giving them something real even through her deceit. She'd done it with me, too.
28	* 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). She just wants a temporary escape from this life from time to time.
29	-->'''Cassie narrating:''' Lore was painting a vivid picture of her marriage to Fabian, one of love and also loneliness.
30	* HistoryRepeats: Lore tells Cassie about the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. Then the 2017 Mexico City earthquake hits. In her initial shock, she says that it's her fault -- by talking about it she has reanimated it, breathed new life into it.
31	* LyingByOmission: There is a false murder confession that uses GoryDiscretionShot to imply "I killed him" while not ''actually'' lying about that. [[spoiler:Lore confesses to Cassie that she killed Andres, TakingTheHeat for someone else. She was 11 or 12 weeks pregnant, cramping and bleeding, and terrified she was miscarrying. When her lover Andres confronted Lore about her SecretOtherFamily, he shoved her--not enough force to be dangerous most of the time, but enough to be dangerous to a pregnancy only holding on by a thread to begin with. A wave of MamaBear terror for her baby seized Lore, and then... GoryDiscretionShot. Except GoryDiscretionShot is just a storytelling technique, not an actual event that can occur. The part of the story that Lore does not tell Cassie is that after Andres shoved her, he stepped back, afraid of his own potential for violence, and both lovers left the encounter alive.]]
32	* MamaBear: [[spoiler:Lore is 11 or 12 weeks pregnant, 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 that can occur. After he shoves Lore, Andres steps back, afraid of his own potential for violence, and both lovers leave the encounter alive.]] [[spoiler:And then in a second fit of maternal devotion, Lore -- along with [[PapaBear Fabian]] -- did everything they could to protect Gabriel after he confesses to her that he killed Andres.]]
33	* 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.
34	* 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 are 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.
35	* PlotParallel: Lore carries on a relationship with Andres, not telling him about her husband and kids. Cassie carries on a relationship with Duke, not telling him about her father and brother.
36	* PolarOppositeTwins: The twins' EstablishingCharacterMoment is that at age 12, Mateo does his homework on Fridays right after school, while Gabriel waits until the end of the weekend and does it at the last minute. Lore later comments that Gabriel picks on nerdy kids at school and Mateo would probably be on the receiving end of that if they were not brothers. The family refers to them as ''cuates''--a word which in Mexican Spanish means "fraternal twins", even though they're identical twins--and this may be a joke about how different they are.
37	* RashomonStyle: Lore creates a justification that her affair helps her be a better mother when she's at home -- less uptight, more playful and present with her kids. Mateo tells it differently.
38	-->'''Mateo:''' Everything already felt so… Precarious.\
39	'''Lore:''' It did?\
40	'''Mateo:''' Of course it did. You were never home. Dad was in his own world. Everyone was broke. We had friends who'd lost their houses, who were selling drugs. It felt like we were next.\
41	'''Lore:''' That's not-- That’s not how I remember it.\
42	'''Mateo:''' I'm not surprised.
43	* RelationshipSalvagingDisaster: [[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.]]
44	* 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 who would want to take a break from the duties of family life to go do ''more'' family life somewhere else. Women (and most men, for that matter) 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.
45	* 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's known Lore for over a decade so he cannot be new to her.
46	-->'''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.
47	* SexIsLiberation: Lore sees her affair as liberating and bringing out the best in her, and this benefits her family back home. {{Deconstructed\|Trope}} as everyone else sees it as enormously selfish and with huge collateral damage for everyone else.
48	* TakingTheHeat: ExaggeratedTrope. [[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.]]
49	* UnreliableExpositor:
50	** 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.
51	--->'''Penelope:''' Don't forget, Lore is a very good liar.
52	** In the epilogue, Lore admits that [[spoiler:her and Andres's first and second dates were basically swapped in her retelling. It's more romantic, less sordid, if they don't have sex on the ever first date.]]
53	* WatchingTroyBurn: At 7 in the morning on September 19, 1985, Lore is in Mexico City, staying with her lover in his apartment in Tlatelolco, when the 1985 Mexico City earthquake hits. The disaster is so heart-rendering, the scale so cataclysmic, that it pushes her to make what she on paper knows is a terrible decision: Marrying Andres.
54	* WeddingRingRemoval: InvertedTrope. Lore removes her wedding ring for a bath, and forgets to put it back on. Then she meets Andres that night, and it turns dramatic.
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Context Literature / MoreThanYoullEverKnow