According to her bio, British-Greek poet and author Aea Varfis-van Warmelo tends to write “about deceit, apocalypse and other good things”, so she’s well placed to give Big issue her favourite books about lying.
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
I’m so fond of this louche book about a poet who cannot “even imagine imagining” that poetry matters, so then resorts to the far more rewarding craft that is compulsive lying, which will earn him attention, sympathy and a hot Spanish girlfriend. I took its moral to heart.
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt
Marguerite discovers that the mother who raised her to have immaculate taste and decorum (‘bon ton’) is in fact not her mother, but someone who kidnapped her as a child. Although the story of her life is revealed to be a lie, Marguerite’s personality remains impressively and enviously intact thanks to the mooring effect bon ton has.
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The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
This fleet-footed dissection of the moral implications and failures of journalism reads like a thriller and is essential reading for anyone literate, as far as I’m concerned.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
I read this when I was young and before I’d acquired my own bon ton, so my memory and critical assessment deserve an update, but I was dazzled at the time by how effectively McEwan deploys one childish lie to catalyse and warp an entire novel and remain fond of it.
