Mom says "There were many untruths"

So, shall we discuss family reactions to published writings? Talk about rejection! I just got back from a visit to my family's homestead. Boy, did I ever get an earful. The funny thing is that their big complaint is not even about anything very important or primary to the piece.  It's my view on guns that pisses them off. They want to quibble about details, like did my father ever really give me a gun, and if so, why did they never see a rifle wrapped up under the Christmas tree with my name on it.  (In fact, he'd taken me out shooting and tried to give me the rifle then, but I refused to take it...can I help it that my mother wasn't there as a witness. No one was there. But does that mean it didn't happen or that I am a liar?)  Also, they say that anyone walking into our house would not have known there were guns in the house, that my father locked his office where the rifle display cabinets were, keeping it closed, and that the guns in the closets and under the beds were upstairs where no one went. But does this mean that they were not still there? My point was that those of us who lived there (hello?) knew there were guns in the house. My father used to shoot out the window at squirrels....and we lived in the thickly settled suburbs. (The neighbors used to complain because they had little kids and my friggin' Dad was shooting out the bedroom windows.) I think it's my brother's NRA-point that's influencing the complaint. In his opinion, we lived in a gun-responsible house; guns were not lying around! My point is, holy crap, there are guns everywhere in this joint! Anyway, the thing about families is that they will focus on the little things so they can say your writing is a lie, in order to ignore the big things.  Like, how about:  "Wow it really sucks what happened to you." Or "I never realized how painful this whole disinheritance thing must have been for you. I'm sorry, dude."
    What I learned this weekend is that it's hard for them to understand that everyone in that house was a separate person with a separate opinion and a separate experience and a separate perspective. That's practically a revolutionary idea to them. Write up one of those perspectives and put it in a prominent publication, and you are practically the one holding the gun all of a sudden. I guess that's what they don't like.  As Alice Walker says, "I am a girl, so I do not get a gun."  (Also the epigraph in my first published book.)
    In other news, some interest in the book proposal with a phone call being scheduled this week and some additional sample chapters being sent around. I will keep you posted.