Liars
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 77 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
An “eviscerating” (The New York Times) novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars of us all—from the author of Very Cold People and 300 Arguments
FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, Lit Hub, Chicago Public Library
“Is divorce the new marriage plot? . . . [Liars] pulses with a rare kind of anger, making it a compulsive, unforgettable read. Love stories, it seems, are out. Divorce as liberation? Very much in.”—Vogue
“A tour de force . . . Liars makes an old story fresh.”—NPR
“A bracing story of a woman on the verge.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A nuclear family can destroy a woman artist. I’d always known that. But I’d never suspected how easily I’d fall into one anyway.
When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including—a few years later—all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.
As Jane’s career flourishes, their marriage starts to falter. Throughout the upheavals of family life, Jane tries to hold it all together. That is, until John leaves her.
Liars is a tour de force of wit and rage, telling the blistering story of a marriage as it burns to the ground, and of a woman rising inexorably from its ashes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The second novel from essayist and poet Manguso (after Very Cold People) paints an excoriating portrait of a marriage. In brisk prose, Manguso tells the story of John and Jane, who meet as emerging artists and discover, over the course of their 14-year union, just how "adversarial" a marriage can become. Jane, who narrates, is a writer deeply committed to her craft. While working on a book-length poem, she meets John, a multidisciplinary artist, and she's relieved to find a kindred spirit, someone "for whom making art was central and being in a relationship was incidental." But after getting married and becoming parents, Jane realizes John is "the main character" and she's "his wife." Consequently, she "floated face down in housewifery," cooking, cleaning, and taking charge of moving the family from New York City to Los Angeles after John launches a film production company there, then back to New York after the company fires him. When John eventually leaves her, she fantasizes "about shitting in my hand and smearing... the shit into the backs of all his paintings." Manguso's barbed sentences push the plot forward at a brisk pace. The author is at the top of her game.
Customer Reviews
Awful and thrilling at the same time.
I’ve never read a book like this. As someone who fears cheating and deceit, some of the lines will haunt me forever.
Interestingly boring
Short and an easy enough read, I finished it, but I didn’t particularly like it. It stressed me out how bad their relationship was lol.
Awful
I tried. This book is awful. Never ending and redundant.