Chapters (54)
- Cover
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Epilogue
- A Note from the Author
- Discussion Questions
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Acclaim for David Rawlings
- Also by David Rawlings
Milly stared at him. Strange-looking guy. Young but old, and he had a twinkle in his eye. That had to be a filter.
A link at the top of the screen pulsed and glowed. Cameras. Milly opened the page and flicked her way past thick black cameras. Others were wooden and boxy. Nothing exciting . . . plus, she already had an old camera. Why would she need another one? What she needed was someone to turn her film into photos.
A second link pulsed and glowed. Gallery. She flicked her way down a page filled with faces. The photos were embarrassing. No smiles, no good angles. Someone even looked like they didn’t want to get caught eating a whole block of chocolate. It was almost as if people didn’t know the camera was there. Weird.
Another link at the top of the page pulsed and glowed in yellow text. Send us your film!
Milly’s finger hovered over it as a chat window popped up with a ping and a text pulsed in bright red.
Someone is typing . . .
Another ping, and a message flashed into the bottom corner of her screen.
Welcome to Simon’s Film Lab! How may I help you today?
A Note from the Author
Dear Friend,
Thank you for investing your time in reading The Camera Never Lies. I hope you enjoyed the story and the message woven through it.
And I hope you had more fun reading it than I had writing it.
No, this isn’t a confession, where you learn that the original idea for The Camera Never Lies was found in the desk of my mentor after he died. The book concept is mine. Honestly. And my mentor is still alive. I think. I should call him.
The challenge I found when writing this book is that it started as the story of a marriage counselor and addressed the question, What would it look like if a man’s secrets were revealed to those around him? But then the story became a story not of a marriage counselor but of a marriage, and that’s where the challenge began. Again, this is not a confession, but more a realization that our honesty (or rejection of it) comes with messy consequences. And those consequences are often felt by others. In Daniel’s case, by his wife and daughter. In Kelly’s case, by her husband and daughter. Poor Milly.
The more I explored the secrets Daniel and Kelly held from each other, the clearer it became that turning your back on something that’s an inalienable truth is more than a rejection of honesty. It’s a choice that comes packed with a punch, and even if you duck the blow, it can hit others.
My stories always come with a theme. With The Baggage Handler, the story was about dealing with emotional baggage. With The Camera Never Lies, the theme is about the price of accepting honesty with others and ourselves.