Liars by Sarah Manguso

Friday, Mar. 7, 2025--San Antonio

Liars by Sarah Manguso is a book that took me some time to become invested in it.  It begins with tales of how horrible a marriage is.  The central character is the wife who is being mentally abused by her husband--a man who does nothing to help around the house or with their child, who is a frustrated because of being unsuccessful both as an artist and as a failed (3 times) tech entrepreneur, who is envious of his wife's successful writing career, who constantly manipulates her to feel like she is a failure (in all possible ways), and who regularly implies to friends that she is crazy by emphasizing that she received psychological treatment years before they were married and exaggerating the story as if she had been confined to a mental hospital.  At the same time, the woman keeps downplaying/overlooking/excusing the severity of the abuse while it continues to happen regularly.  I wanted to yell at her.  By the last third of the book, I realized that I had needed to go through all the first 2/3 to understand the situation better and to observe the slow evolution that was occurring in their relationship. I didn't want to put the book down during that last third of it.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.