Liars: A Novel

“Fraught with anger and dissatisfaction, yet clinging to hope, Liars starts out as a choppy, annoying read but gradually becomes morosely fascinating.”

Liars, by Sarah Manguso, is an internal discourse that reads more like a series of diary entries than a novel. Clearly the author’s choice of style is a device meant to serve a purpose, but if you are looking for a book with a flowing story arc propelled by compelling characters and a setting that makes you feel as though you are “there” Liars isn’t it. Instead, the narrator, Jane, documents her thoughts in this way:

“He said he’d dated two women at once, one year, and that they’d found out about each other.

“He said that his last relationship had died a slow death and ended in guarded friendship, but I knew it might yet be there, steering him.

“He said he’d known right away that he’d spend the rest of his life with me. Then he said, That’s what’s called showing one’s hand, or putting all one’s cards on the table, and then I said, I’ll totally marry you.”

Jane is a successful writer who marries John, a not-so-successful filmmaker. What follows is a one-sided litany of complaints catalogued by Jane against her husband, while John’s version of their story seems largely left out. Though Jane makes her disappointments with John paramount, her self-talk is deeply revealing as she shares the mental and physical minutia of her days, and in this way the diary-like format of Liars works extremely well.

As Jane focuses on John’s faults, which are many, we can’t escape the fact that Jane also brings challenges into their marriage: a life-long struggle with her depression, suicidal thoughts, a stay in a psychiatric hospital, an autoimmune disease, bipolar disorder, and a need for tranquilizers to quell her anxiety.

Within its unique format Liars is riddled with awkward phrases and word usage, such as this comment by Jane, describing sex with her husband:

“We finally managed a penetrative session.”

And this: “Upstate for the summer, I was house-sitting and making vigorous use of the fireplace.”

Strange, but at second glance those oddly constructed sentences, and others, might actually be intended to demonstrate Jane’s detachment and emotional stalemate.

Liars is loaded with introspection, though at times it feels more like self-absorption as Jane repeatedly gives crude details about bodily sensations and functions. Here is one example of many:

“I took three shits before breakfast . . .”

While the coarse language may resonate with some readers in its effort to portray Jane’s mundane days and unspoken hostility, for others it will feel a bit hackneyed and result in Jane being a less sympathetic character.

When Jane and John have a son she feels more of herself disappear into an unfulfilling marriage and exhausting motherhood:

“Once the child was down for a nap I didn’t know what to do other than clean the house. There was no self left.”

The author never names the boy and only refers to him as “the child,” which further illustrates Jane’s ambivalence and impassivity:

“The child pushed the following items around in his toy stroller: a toy truck, a toy hammer, a book about trucks. He wasn’t interested in pushing around the bunny.”

Yet hidden within the rote configuration of Liars there are tender glimpses of the ways Jane loves her son and is filled with awe as she watches him grow:

“My love for the child had become incapacitating. It was hard not to go into his room and watch him sleep.”

“The child tantrummed until he choked himself quiet, but a couple of days before that, he’d tried to pick up a freckle from my arm.”

“The child picked up his marimba mallet and said, Lollipop. It did look like a lollipop. Then he thought for a moment and said, Plane. Red. He’d eaten a red lollipop on the plane ride home from Alberta. That was the day I knew he was capable of telling a story.”

With those words Jane’s maternal love shines through her resentment.

Liars takes a jaded, honest look at one woman’s life as a wife and mother. Fraught with anger and dissatisfaction, yet clinging to hope, Liars starts out as a choppy, annoying read but gradually becomes morosely fascinating.