Tournament of Books discussion

Space to discuss the 2025 TOB contender Liars by Sarah Manguso.

ooooohhh girl. Reading this after All Fours was a real 1-2 punch.

Audra wrote: "ooooohhh girl. Reading this after All Fours was a real 1-2 punch."

I feel badly for =The Wedding People=; whatever its merits, I don't think it is well-served by comparisons with either of those two books.

That's next to get the play in done with.

I gotta say this is the toughest play-in round for me since I've started participating in the TOB. Really liked All Fours and Liars, and I'm right in the middle of Wedding People which I'm loving.

Here's an interview with Manguso talking about Liars. She started writing it about 4 days after her ex-husband moved out and she wrote it in a "brain-obliterating rage."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stFX_...

Bob wrote: "Here's an interview with Manguso..."

(extra fun: check out the bookshelves....)

Audra wrote: "ooooohhh girl. Reading this after All Fours was a real 1-2 punch."

I read All Fours right after Liars!! Definitely a 1-2 punch, whewww.

Came to see everyone's thoughts because I'm trying to decide whether to read this now, and the comments are making me feel even more conflicted! I really don't need a punch of depression these days, but I'm intrigued.

Elizabeth wrote: "Came to see everyone's thoughts because [...] I really don't need a punch of depression these days..."

Well, I got it as more of a shot of rage than a punch of depression. But YMMV.

Tim wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Came to see everyone's thoughts because [...] I really don't need a punch of depression these days..."

Well, I got it as more of a shot of rage than a punch of depression. But YMMV."

Oh that's fine then, feeling a lot of rage these days, ha. Will be nice to have someone fictional to direct it towards. I've seen so much praise for this recently, so I'm giong to give it a try.

Wow, this definitely sparks rage!

On the one hand, it feels mortifyingly accurate, but on the other hand, I'm feeling incredibly grateful to be in a long-term partnership (no official marriage or kids, which probably helps) that is the complete opposite of this.

So I think readers will either feel seen if they've also been egregiously disrespected like this book's MC, or they'll feel comforted if they have a spouse/partner who is nothing like John.

The insights on what marriages (sometimes, often, or) could turn into feel important and worth spending time with.

It feels very accurate. Not just on marriages, but on the endless unpaid labor women are expected to do, especially when it comes to children.

I read this a while back, so the details are a bit hazy now, but the overwhelming feeling I got from this book was relentless negativity. I remember thinking the protagonist must be in a terrible mental state to voice everything the way she does. I’m not saying she’s not justified. It often sounds like she is, but whoa! This was relentless. I remember feeling a bit beat up afterwards and glad when it was over. I’ve read the other two play-in round books, and this one is my least favorite of the three by far.

I’m with you, Gwendolyn. I’m always really torn when a book is ‘well written’ in some easily discernible way, as this one is, and also I hate to diss a book for the simple reason that the characters ‘aren’t likeable,’ but I think beyond these things there is this relentless blunt and ultimately boring and one-note negativity in the book that sapped me of any good feelings I might have tried to hold onto about it, as I read.

Gwendolyn wrote: "I read this a while back, so the details are a bit hazy now, but the overwhelming feeling I got from this book was relentless negativity. I remember thinking the protagonist must be in a terrible m..."

I've said above it felt more like rage than just negativity.

I came away from the novel feeling all these things at once:
* John is a jerk.
* Jane is right to be angry at being betrayed.
* John is not a jerk because he is an evil person, John is a jerk because he is a moderately selfish person who finds the path to his betrayals (of his wife, of his art, of his investors) the easiest one, the least work.
* The conditions that led to Jane's betrayal, to his "easiest" path, are reinforced by our social expectations, making all of us, in some small way, complicit in that betrayal.
* Even Jane herself is complicit in her own betrayal, and partly for the same reasons, because she goes out of her way to justify the way things are, because it seems the right path, the easiest path (despite how exhausting it was to stay on the trail).

At the end of the novel I found I shared Jane's outsized rage at this betrayal, but that feeling had to coexist with an unsettling ambivalence that comes from recognizing that John didn't set out to be the bad guy, that Jane didn't have to go along with it, and yet....

John could have been an Iago, but really, he was more of a George. And that makes the rage of the novel so much more complicated.

There's also an odd frission when you realize that this particular train wreck comes about because John is committed to avoiding taking responsibility, that he won't engage with how things actually are and because Jane is over-committed to the responsibilities of their lives, so much so that she won't see things as they are, either.

The relationship lasts as long as it does, beyond what could have (should have!) been a mildly disappointing, early parting of the ways after just a few chapters to an acrimonious, burn it to the ground conflagration at the end, because of the social expectations that enable each of them to feel satisfied with their choices along the way.

Lark and Gwendolyn, this is how I felt after finishing it. I was all in for the first half, and then the sameness of the tone wore me down.

I didn't buy the idea that she stayed because of a vision she had of being elderly together. We have all seen older couples out together utterly ignoring each other; a long-lived marriage does not mean a happy one or even one of companionship in old age. People are tied together with ropes of resentment and hostility all the time, voluntarily living miserably together than happily apart.

I did listen to an interview with the author who said she wrote the book immediately after the break-up of her marriage and suspect that she would write a very different book with the benefit of time and distance, and I hope she writes that book. I am interested in her other book and will take a good look at whatever she writes next.

Alison, that’s such an interesting idea, to imagine and to hope for another book from Sara Manguso about this same dynamic but written from a distance. I would also love to read it. It might take 30 years or so given the depth of feeling in this novel.

Alison wrote: "I did listen to an interview with the author who said she wrote the book immediately after the break-up of her marriage and suspect that she would write a very different book with the benefit of time and distance, and I hope she writes that book...."

Okay, I've been thinking about this all afternoon, because maybe Manguso would write a different book looking back on this event from some distant future, but it's not obvious that would be a better book.

I understand your "with the benefit of time and distance" two different ways, and I don't think either signifies an improvement.

It might be that you mean "with the benefit of time and distance, she will see that it wasn't really all John's fault, she'll have a more balanced view of the events." But I think she does have a balanced view of the events. I think she fully acknowledges her faults and her complicity. John is not the only liar; she is lying, too. Jane dissects her decisions in a very clear-eyed, if not entirely dispassionate way. So I don't believe that "time and distance" will give her the benefit of a more balanced understanding.

But maybe it's the dispassionate part you are thinking about when you are thinking of the benefit of time and distance. No question, time and distance will dull the pain of betrayal. Make it less urgent. Leach it from story. But I also don't think that improves the book. The point is to feel that rage. To make that betrayal visceral to the reader.

I'm not saying it can't be a good book without that passion - I mean, I think about =The Sense of an Ending=, which very much is that kind of a novel (and was also a terrific novel). The narrator is revisiting an early entanglement with the benefit of time and distance, with the resulting dulling of the passions and pains of the moment, and (ironically, I suppose) with the baggage of many years of rationalization to cloud his understanding of events.

But that's not an improved =Liars=, that's just a different =Liars=.

I don't think you make "King Lear" a better story by taking out the tragedy and (sorry to caricature your complaint!) having a sit down to understand in a calm and rational way why maybe Lear should have made different decisions. "Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone. Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever! I know when one is dead, and when one lives; She’s dead as earth. [...] A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! I might have sav’d her; now she’s gone for ever! Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. " The point is the tragedy.

And in =Liars=, the point is the rage.

You know, I’m reevaluating this one. This morning I started from the beginning again. It’s really magnificent writing and now that I know what’s coming and am prepared for it I think the rage won’t overwhelm the art the way it did the first time through. I love rereading btw. The ways a second or third pass let the spiky irritations get sanded down where you can begin to see the shape beneath.

Lark wrote: "I love rereading btw. The ways a second or third pass let the spiky irritations get sanded down where you can begin to see the shape beneath..."

Yes to this!

(It was only on my second read that I really connected to =All Fours=, for example.)

Tim wrote: "(It was only on my second read that I really connected to =All Fours=, for example.)..."

Thanks for writing this as I felt quite disconnected from All Fours--partly or mostly because it didn't give me that zing-zing-zing feeling of The First Bad Man--and I really should try again.

I absolutely want to read both again. I read one after the other and it was a bit much for me. All Fours however...lort. I may never recover.

I'm excited to really like a novel that Tim does this year! (I've got about 50 pages of Liars left, and I'm enthralled.)

Zachary wrote: "I'm excited to really like a novel that Tim does this year! (I've got about 50 pages of Liars left, and I'm enthralled.)"

Don't go making me rethink this. I've already gone all-in!

Lark wrote: "You know, I’m reevaluating this one. This morning I started from the beginning again. It’s really magnificent writing and now that I know what’s coming and am prepared for it I think the rage won’t..."

Yes, there’s truth in this. I’m not sure I’ll have the time for a reread, but I do love to do it when I can.

Until recently, I was a divorce lawyer. Listening to this book on audio was like listening to my former clients. Ranting about a terrible marriage that lasted over a decade and blaming everything on the other person. I left that line of work because it wasn't enjoyable at $350.00 an hour. It's just awful when you've paid for the privilege of listening to it.

What I can imagine while reading this novel a second time is that irl the other person can really be that awful and you stay anyway. That’s an interesting mystery to explore in fiction, and in real life. Why women stay.

Just finished and whew I can't decide if this was the worst time or best time to read this. I'm fortunate to have an incredible partner, so I mostly raged against Trump and all terrible men while reading this, and it really wore me out and left me still feeling angry.

I think I liked the book a lot since it made me FEEL a lot, despite the fact that it wasn't enjoyable to read, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone. I think the things I didn't like about it are things I don't like about memoirs - less plot, more self-centric with less growth, etc.

A few very random questions:
-This felt a lot like a past TOB book that I can't seem to dig up. About a new mother who is exhausted with her useless husband?
edited to add that I found the book - not TOB - Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, which was similar and I think I liked better.

-Did anyone else thing of the Barbie movie rant (the one that snaps all the barbies out of their hypnosis) at one point when Jane is ranting about the patriarchy?

-Um, can people really feel when they are ovulating?! This was new to me.

For me, the play-in is No Contest. This was by far the best book of the 3 -- maybe partially, in the interest of full disclosure, because it eerily reflected my own personal experience, where neither of the other two even touched down on the same planet where I reside. But mostly because of the writing, which I found beyond gripping except when it came to the saccharine descriptions of "the child", which was kind of icky.

Ellen wrote: "For me, the play-in is No Contest. This was by far the best book of the 3 -- maybe partially, in the interest of full disclosure, because it eerily reflected my own personal experience, where neith..."

HA! Where as I could draw a map of All Fours.

Ellen wrote: "For me, the play-in is No Contest. This was by far the best book of the 3..."

...if you ask me, of the 18....

(And sorry about the eerie reflection....)

Ellen wrote: "For me, the play-in is No Contest. This was by far the best book of the 3 -- maybe partially, in the interest of full disclosure, because it eerily reflected my own personal experience, where neith..."

Given that Hannah Utt is a filmmaker, I think that she's going to pick All Fours. Unlike pretty much every single person here, the book I think should move on is The Wedding People.

Alison I would pick The Wedding People also!

Alison and Bretnie, The Wedding People is my pick also. I was starting to think I was the only one!

I’m also team Wedding People for the play-in! It has flaws, but the voice, dialogue, and humor were a perfect match for me.

I’ve read the audiobook about 20 times by now since it’s a top comfort read that helps me fall asleep every night. I can almost recite the whole book. ;)

I’m probably team All Fours for the play-in round because of its uniqueness, but The Wedding People is a close second with Liars as a (very) distant third.

My only reason for not wanting All Fours is so I don't have to talk about a book I love with people who don't like it.

I guess I might feel that way about Liars, Audra.

Oh, and in answer to this question, Bretnie:
"Um, can people really feel when they are ovulating?! This was new to me."
...apparently, yes, although I never experienced it myself. It's called "mittelschmerz". When I was in my 20s (a million years ago), I had a roommate who suffered from it.

I really liked the first half of this book but then it got repetitive and depressing. I wanted a happy ending for her. WHY did she stay with this jerk?! I hated him, and then I started disliking her for not leaving him. I so very badly wanted her to find her voice and stand up to him but instead she just got further humiliated by him.

Is this all a study in bad marriages and a lesson to women to not marry egotistical narcissists?

For the record, I’ve been happily married for 11 years and we’ve had 4 kids and 2 pregnancy losses. My husband is kind and loving. He and I and our marriage are not without their faults or struggles - as is everyone and every relationship, in my opinion - but we love each other and show it and work through those things together and he is my rock.

On the other hand, my mom had a marriage like this - married to an a-hole whom she let control her and make her angry and depressed because she was trapped. My mom was ab uneducated housewife though and had no other options financially I didn’t understand why the main character stayed when she could have been way better off financially without him! I guess both she and my mom were emotionally tied to the idea of marriage.

My GoodReads app stopped my comment from being able to continue so I’m finishing it in a separate comment. Haha.

The book was triggering for me because it was really hard to be raised by a mom who couldn’t stand up for herself and leave the domineering, controlling person who was my father. He treated me badly too (but at least The Child is a boy so hopefully he will be treated a bit better by his sexist bully of a father).

But I liked the writing so overall it was a pretty good read for me. I so wish it had ended differently.

I liked All Fours better. Now onto The Wedding People.

I'm team any book but Liars. It was so tedious, the same misery over and over again. The protagonist grows not at all. Calling her son "The Child" didn't serve any purpose that I could see; why should her worthless husband be assigned a name while her sweet son remained anonymous?

Terrible book, in my opinion. It reads like a work of therapy for the author's own divorce to me.

I simply can't get over the basic language, full of "to be" verbs and run-on sentences. The sheer lack of any timing structure in telling the narrative also is frustrating, as she just skips over whole segments of her marriage life and often doesn't get detailed enough in describing the events. One moment the narrator talks about wanting to get pregnant despite never wanting to get pregnant, and then a single line break later, she's twenty weeks pregnant.

All Fours is similar in tone, but I think it is a far better book than this one. The Wedding People is the book that gets my vote though.

I just finished this one. I usually have a particular fondness for books that were written in a blinding fit of rage, and I expected to love this, but it didn't work for me. I SHOULD have identified madly with this character, I should have been all in, crying out "sing it sister!" ... but I was not. The machine-gun rat-a-tat-tat writing style kept me at arm's length at all times, and began to irritate me. I felt like the author was merely pretending to let me in, but she was not actually letting me in.

(To be clear, I still liked it quite a bit, but I didn't LOVE it the way I expected I would.)

Bretnie wrote: "-Um, can people really feel when they are ovulating?! This was new to me...."



I can not, but it seems my younger daughter can! So, yes, some people can.

Bretnie wrote: "-Um, can people really feel when they are ovulating?! This was new to me...."

Yes. Yes, I was one who could tell, not all the time, but usually. And so could my mom. She referred to it as that feeling of "laying an egg" - made sense to me. It wasn't painful, just a notice of a different kind of feeling in the area, if that makes sense. Also another example of how women seem to experience very different versions of menopause, too.