"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." - Liars by Sarah Manguso

This book is a poem; a lengthy, uninterrupted, poem. It is an ode to the unsung cost of female labour. The main character is bitter, confused, desperate, hopeful, hopeless, and rejected. Its poetic style reminded me of The Emperor’s Babe by Bernadine Everisto. If you need a book with strict chapters and chronology, then start walking. But if you’re willing to relinquish control and follow the flowing emotions and feelings of this book, you’ll find it worth the journey.

At times, I felt it drove the point a little too firmly home and missed opportunities for nuance, and yet I also respect that perhaps the character of John was truly that awful. I also found it easy to lose myself in the prose and relate to Jane, drawing upon my own toxic relationships and experiences of gaslighting. The novel felt confronting and almost uncomfortable at moments, which truly added to the experience. You almost want to shake Jane out of it, and yet you know how easy it is to become her.

All in all, it was a beautiful book and truly one of a kind. I loved it not only as a writer like Jane, but as a woman scorned.

Buy Liars by Sarah Manguso

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