Truth or dare to tell a white lie: Shelter Island author on. the little everyday deceits

Burton White’s people on Shelter Island go back four generations, and to hear him tell it, one secret to their family harmony is the ability to tell a good lie.

The little white kind.

“My grandmother was from blue-collar stone carvers who came over from Italy, and my grandfather was an artist, who came from money,” Mr. White said. “In their home, everyone was the same. It was not important to be right. It was important to be polite. We still fight, but as a family we get along because we let the little things go by.” 

It’s this family dynamic that inspired Mr. White to write a book about how and when to lie a little. He recently published it through his own publishing company, Curious Publishing, with distribution and sales handled by amazon.com

“Little White Lies” is 86 pages of how-to on the art of social interaction without tears. Mr. White says this book, like all his writing, deals with emotional intelligence: the capacity to handle interpersonal relationships with empathy and nuance. 

Nowhere does Mr. White’s sage advice shine more brightly than in the chapter titled, “When You See an Unattractive Newborn,” which was inspired by his experience with close friends on the birth of their second child.

Mr. White’s advice to someone introduced to an ugly baby is to, “Find one feature. Go all in. Do not waver.” When White’s friends brought their newborn home and peeled back the blanket for him to see, “I jumped,” he said. “He looked like the Michelin Man, with a big chunk of fat between his hand and his forearm.” 

Time improved the child’s looks, and he’s now a perfectly presentable adult. The author is grateful he had the presence of mind not to tell his friends that their son was the ugliest baby he had ever seen.

Little white lies work best in social situations with people who are not intimates, and Mr. White said the most fraught situations are usually around the appearance of someone very close to you. “Most difficult,” he added. “When do you have a conversation with your spouse about that outfit that does not look good? Especially when she tells me I look the same today as the day she met me.”

Mr. White’s great-grandfather was an impressionist painter who discovered the beauty of the Island more than a hundred years ago. Inspired by the waters of West Neck Creek, teeming with fish, he drew a portrait of a weakfish in pencil that captured the tenacity and fight of one of the Island’s most beloved eating fish and built a group of fishing shacks that still stand along the shores of West Neck Creek near the family home. 

In 2022, the family sold 20 acres of undeveloped land along South Menantic Road to the Shelter Island Community Preservation Fund and Suffolk County. The waterfront property is called the Artist’s Lane Preserve.

Islanders went from a society of sitting out on the porch, finding out about people, to a more isolated way of life. On the day that we spoke, Mr. White was on his way to a Remembrance of Life for his wife’s brother and had no intention of deploying white lies in this setting. “When it’s more serious, you tone it down,” he said. “You have to be more truthful.”

Mr. White is already writing a sequel to “Little White Lies” for holiday socializing and hopes to have it published in time to put under the tree. Another book on the specialized little white lies associated with docking a boat is in the works and promises to provide cover for all your sticky moments at the marina.

“The books are about keeping relationships going. It’s so important today,” said White. “You may have a really bad meal, but you may fall in love with that person.”

Unless you insist on the unvarnished truth.