Liars by Sarah Manguso

 

As the title indicates, this is a book about liars--people lying to other people, each other, and themselves. Early on there is a scene that serves as a metaphor for what's to come when Jane, the narrator, tries to use a marker to hide the fact that her thrift store fur coat is disintegrating. Soon after this, she fills in her 'patchy eyebrows' with a pencil. When Jane, who is a writer, meets John, a self-identified artist and filmmaker, this habit of covering up reality gets more serious. They begin a relationship quickly and it's clear that this is a mistake, especially when they decide to get married. Jane realizes this on some level, but is pretty good at lying to herself and at 'keeping up appearances' with the people she knows. As she says about herself, 'I was a layer cake of abandonment and hurt, and fury, iced with a smile.' (p36) John does his own lying to her and to others. He lies to himself as well, but in a different way than Jane does. He has delusions of grandeur regarding his artwork, which isn't particularly good, mostly, although he seems to think he's a genius. John is lazy and manipulative and seems to fail at everything, leaving Jane to pick up the pieces and cover for him as best she can. Meanwhile, Jane is a successful writer, which John resents. When 'the child' arrives, things get worse and the pressure on Jane builds, particularly when they move back and forth between NY and California a few times while John chases down funding for his ideas. The pressure is always on Jane. John needs someone to blame for his own failings and inadequacies. 'He kept telling me to stop letting it show on my face. To hide how I felt so that no one would know, no one would be able to read the proof of my shame and humiliation, which by then I always felt for John so he never needed to feel it himself.' (p 81)

And so the lies continue throughout the book as things continue to fall apart. It's not quite the case that this is a portrait of a marriage falling apart, but more that the marriage was falling apart before it began because the two people involved were already in crisis before they met. The (unnamed) child both exacerbates the situation and gives Jane someone to be stronger for, even as she sometimes uses him as an excuse to stay in the marriage.

The book is structured in short paragraphs of various lengths and this fits the narrative well. Jane goes back and forth--one minute she has clarity about what is going on and the next she's telling herself that she's so lucky and of course she loves John and they have a happy family. The short paragraphs illustrate this as the reader whipsaws back and forth with Jane's thoughts. The book is extremely well written and I was drawn in from the start, finishing in one sitting because I didn't want to put it down. This book is almost exclusively focused on the devastation of the relationship and Jane's responses to it. There is a lot about how overwhelmed Jane is at what seems to be required of her as John's wife and 'the child's' mother, as well as how she feels she is losing herself in the process, but here and there are sprinkled comments about the next book she is having published, so clearly there was writing time happening, even if it was hard to carve out. This is a painful book to read at times. John was pathetic and thoroughly unlikable. That said, this is an excellent book and I'm glad to have read it. I haven't read any other work by this author, but will now seek it out.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.

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