Liars

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

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.

About the Author

Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books, including the novel Very Cold People, a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Manguso is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, and the Rome Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

“Painful and brilliant—I loved it.”—Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and Either/Or

“Powerful ... an unflinchingly true and honest depiction of a marriage turning from gold to dust—the resentments and disappointments that can rot the heart.” —Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace

“A furious, propulsive meditation on wifehood, motherhood and artistic ambition.” —NPR

“Makes stirring observations about marriage and identity.” —Time

“Liars seethes with rage. Manguso is a masterful sentence writer and a brutally honest surveyor of the disadvantages women endure.” —Los Angeles Times

“Painful and beautifully wrought ... Manguso is a poet-novelist who knows brevity can whittle the sharpest knife.”—Vulture

Dimensions: 14.73 x 2.39 x 21.67 cm