The Lying Game

by Stephen Goldenberg

How do you overcome a mundane upbringing in boring Bournemouth and find fame and fortune? Paul Darling's answer is to weave a web of fantasies and lies around himself - but the only result is a dead end job on the local newspaper, until a chance meeting with an old friend offers him an escape. He moves to London where he rises rapidly up life's rollercoaster - gaining influential friends, an aristocratic girlfriend, a burgeoning career among the movers and shakers - And then the rollercoaster plunges downhill.

338 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2012

About the author

Stephen Goldenberg has lived and worked in London for most of his life. He studied Law at Oxford University but decided not to follow a legal career and instead became anEnglish teacher in various inner London comprehensive schools. He contributed numerous articles to educational publications, edited his own magazine and broadcast on educational issues on BBC radio 4 and television. He was an advisor to the schools' television series 'The English Programme' and edited and wrote several books of teaching materials.
Since 2008, he has published two novels - 'Stony Ground' and 'The Lying Game'. He now divides his life between London and an 18th century stone-built farmhouse in the Aveyron in South-West France which he and his partner have renovated.
In London, he works as a volunteer story minister at the Ministry of Stories and as a functional skills tutor with the charity for homeless young people, Centrepoint.
His latest novel, 'Car Wheels on a Gravel Drive', is a murder mystery story set in London and the Aveyron in France. It will be published in early 2016.

Reviews

[Stephen Goldenberg]

The idea for writing The Lying Game came to me after some very unpleasant experiences working as a teacher under a newly appointed Headteacher who was determined to force out large numbers of the teaching staff including me. His methods were a mixture of bullying, spreading misinformation and downright lying.
At the same time, I wanted to write something that would reflect what I felt was the increasingly dire state of politics and government in the UK as well in other so-called democracies. In particular, the increasing use of media manipulation, spin doctoring and simple falsification of basic information as well as straightforward lying.
I went back to 1979 and the start of Margaret Thatcher's government as this was when many of the more unpleasant modern political tactics were introduced.
I wanted to create a main character who goes on a journey through life in which he gets sucked into this milieu until his conscience gets the better of him and he decides to get out.
While most of the story is set back in the 1980s, it chimes in well with what has been happening recently in relation to whistleblowers such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden as well as the gradual drift into a total ssurveillance society.