Liars
Published on 15. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-5290-6277-9 (ISBN)
Description
A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars of us all.
'An unflinchingly true and honest depiction of a marriage turning from gold to dust' - Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
'A white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage, and as gripping as you want fiction to be. Any spouse that has ever argued about money, time, work and childcare should read it' - Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity
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.
Sarah Manguso's 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.
'Painful and brilliant - I loved it' - Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and Either/Or
'An unflinchingly true and honest depiction of a marriage turning from gold to dust' - Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
'A white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage, and as gripping as you want fiction to be. Any spouse that has ever argued about money, time, work and childcare should read it' - Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity
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.
Sarah Manguso's 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.
'Painful and brilliant - I loved it' - Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and Either/Or
Reviews / Votes
Liars is an unflagging and acridly funny assault on that story [of a happy marriage], but also a formally canny study of how such tales get told - and how fragile our replacements may turn out * New York Times * Painful and brilliant-I loved it -- Elif Batuman, author <i>The Idiot</i> and <i>Either/Or</i> A triumph and a revelation . . . the most honest marriage novel I have ever read. Sarah Manguso's writing is furious, elegant, bitter, tender, frightening, and deeply funny. I loved this book -- Claire Dederer, author of <i>Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma</i> I read Liars in one breathless, refuse-to-be-interrupted sitting. I was walloped on every page-by the painful familiarity of the story, by the all-at-onceness of the life described in these pages, by the brilliance of Manguso's storytelling . . . I'm going to be returning to-and learning from-this book for years -- Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of <i>You Could Make This Place Beautiful</i> I was spellbound, entranced by Sarah Manguso's deceptively simple but fathoms-deep storytelling. There's an incredible force that underlies this work, propulsive and wild and a little bit scary -- Emily Gould, author of <i>Friendship</i> and <i>Perfect Tunes</i> An exquisitely creepy book about one of our most horrifying institutions: marriage. I quickly devoured it and loved it -- Myriam Gurba, author of <i>Creep</i> Intimate and fierce, Liars is a portrait of a marriage corroded by creative envy and a searing examination of the cost of literary ambition -- Isabel Kaplan Liars is a crime novel. Except the crime is heterosexual marriage. It's a whodunit and the villain is the patriarchy. . . . A brilliantly paced, gripping novel of love and betrayal -- Lyz Lenz, author of <i>This American Ex-Wife</i> I couldn't put it down. An astounding feat. . . spanning a fourteen year marriage with concision and specificity. So many women will connect with this book. It sliced all the way through me -- Rachel Yoder, author of <i>Nightbitch</i> 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, author of <i>The Paper Palace</i> A white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage, and as gripping as you want fiction to be. Any spouse that has ever argued about money, time, work and childcare should read it -- Nick Hornby, author of <i>High Fidelity, Fever Pitch </i> and <i>About a Boy</i>More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
192 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-6277-9 (9781529062779)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2024
Picador
€14.49
Available for download
Person
Sarah Manguso is the author of several books, including the novel Very Cold People, a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award. Her genre-defying work of aphoristic non-fiction, 300 Arguments, was named a best book of the year by more than twenty publications. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship and the Rome Prize. Her work is regularly featured across The New York Times Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine and The New Yorker, among others. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles. Liars is her ninth book.