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The Lie In The Mouth by Jaap Stijl
Gorelov wakes up in an alleyway in the middle of the London riots suffering from a dissociative fugue. Unaware of his identity and having lost his memory, he is rescued by a stranger who guides him out of the riot and on to a journey to help him recover his identity. Is consciousness possible in the absence of memory? The journey ahead is an examination of memory and consciousness told through the allegory of alcoholism using Dante’s circles of hell; every door that is opened in order to escape an unending London night of bars and pubs leads not to freedom but to another bar, another circle of hell, and another level of personal crisis, weakness and addiction. The bars and pubs feature cameo appearances by various dead poets and writers, mass murderers, living oligarchs, terrorists, goddesses, Victorian Imperialists, North Korean female soldiers, punk rockers and armed paramilitary thugs among many others and all along the path, Gorelov is haunted by a woman who he may or may not have murdered.
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February 3, 2025
Jaap Stijl’s The Lie in the Mouth is a literary hallucination, a novel that plunges the reader into the fractured consciousness of Gorelov, a man who wakes up in the chaos of the London riots with no memory of who he is. What unfolds is a descent—or perhaps an ascent?—through a surreal, Dantean labyrinth of bars and nightclubs, each one a new circle of existential crisis, addiction, and half-remembered ghosts.
The novel brilliantly merges noir and allegory, using Gorelov’s amnesia as a lens to explore whether identity can exist without memory. As he stumbles through a London that is both real and hallucinatory, he encounters an absurd, nightmarish cast—dead poets and writers, terrorists, oligarchs, North Korean female soldiers, Victorian imperialists, punk rockers, and armed paramilitary thugs. Each encounter feels like a test, a fragment of a self he can’t quite grasp, or a punishment for sins he may or may not have committed.
Stijl’s prose is sharp, unsettling, and darkly humorous, weaving together philosophy, political absurdity, and a deep, gnawing sense of unease. At the heart of it all is the haunting presence of a woman Gorelov may—or may not—have murdered, a specter that follows him through his unending odyssey of booze and existential reckoning.
The book is not an easy ride—it demands patience and attention, much like navigating a dream where the logic keeps shifting just as you think you understand it. But for those willing to dive in, The Lie in the Mouth offers a wild, intoxicating, and deeply unsettling experience, a novel that lingers like the memory of a long-forgotten song heard in a bar at 3 a.m.
The novel brilliantly merges noir and allegory, using Gorelov’s amnesia as a lens to explore whether identity can exist without memory. As he stumbles through a London that is both real and hallucinatory, he encounters an absurd, nightmarish cast—dead poets and writers, terrorists, oligarchs, North Korean female soldiers, Victorian imperialists, punk rockers, and armed paramilitary thugs. Each encounter feels like a test, a fragment of a self he can’t quite grasp, or a punishment for sins he may or may not have committed.
Stijl’s prose is sharp, unsettling, and darkly humorous, weaving together philosophy, political absurdity, and a deep, gnawing sense of unease. At the heart of it all is the haunting presence of a woman Gorelov may—or may not—have murdered, a specter that follows him through his unending odyssey of booze and existential reckoning.
The book is not an easy ride—it demands patience and attention, much like navigating a dream where the logic keeps shifting just as you think you understand it. But for those willing to dive in, The Lie in the Mouth offers a wild, intoxicating, and deeply unsettling experience, a novel that lingers like the memory of a long-forgotten song heard in a bar at 3 a.m.
Displaying 1 of 1 review