Imagine being an “other woman”, and then finding out that you’re not the only one. There have been many other women, before you and even standing alongside you right now.
Jack learned early that one is never enough. Each chapter tells the experience of someone affected by Jack’s trysts. Some of the women are married, some single, some divorced. The ages vary as Jack grows older. Then the reach goes further, to the ripple effect of hurt caused by infidelity. There is an adult son Jack never knew he fathered. There’s also a bartender on the cusp of meeting the woman of his dreams, only to have Jack whisk her away by saying just the right thing. And there is a doctor who is shocked by Jack’s abandonment of her patient, one of the Other Women with breast cancer. There are the first two wives, who run into each other thirty years after the first wife was replaced by the second wife, and there is the third wife, who is still married to Jack. Jack’s mother also speaks, at the beginning and the end.
All Told tells more than the story of infidelity. It goes beyond the typical triangle of husband, wife, and lover. As the stories grow and the involvements become more interconnected and convoluted, the question of who is cheating on who and why becomes more difficult to answer. Each chapter reveals another secret. But every secret has two sides, and in some cases, even more than that.