On Truth

Sebastian Junger near the end of the compelling and very readable A Death in Belmont: One of the conceits of my profession is that it can discover the truth; it can pry open the world in all its complexity and contradiction and find out exactly what happened in a certain place on a certain day. Sometimes it can, but often the truth simply isn't knowable -- not, at least, in an absolute way. As I did my research I came to understand that not only was this story far messier than the one I'd grown up with, but that I would never know for sure what had actually happened in the Goldberg house that day. Without DNA evidence Smith's guilt or innocence would always be a matter of conjecture. By extension DeSalvo's possible role in the murder would also be a matter of conjecture, and I would never know for sure how close I had come to losing my mother.

So if I was to say something meaningful in the story, I would have to do so without discovering the truth. But maybe the truth isn't even the most interesting thing about some stories, I thought; maybe the most interesting thing about some stories is all the things that COULD be true. And maybe it's in the pursuit of THOSE things that you understand the world in its deepest, most profound sense.