Liars (Hogarth Books + Picador UK, July 2024)

About the book

A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars of us all.

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 joy and labor 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.

Praise

“A white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage, and as gripping as you want fiction to be.” (Nick Hornby)… “It sliced all the way through me.” (Rachel Yoder)… “The author is at the top of her game.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)… “Devastating.” (New Republic)… “A searing, brilliant look at the torments of a failing marriage.” (People)… “Manguso is a masterful sentence writer and a brutally honest surveyor of the disadvantages women endure.” (Los Angeles Times)

Reviews