A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars of us all.

‘An unflinchingly true and honest depiction of a marriage turning from gold to dust’ – Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace

‘A white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage, and as gripping as you want fiction to be. Any spouse that has ever argued about money, time, work and childcare should read it’ – Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity

A nuclear family can destroy a woman artist.

I’d always known that. But I’d never suspected how easily I’d fall into one anyway. When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy.

When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including – a few years later – all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife. As Jane’s career flourishes, their marriage starts to falter.

Throughout the upheavals of family life, Jane tries to hold it all together. That is, until John leaves her. Sarah Manguso’s Liars is a tour de force of wit and rage, telling the blistering story of a marriage as it burns to the ground, and of a woman rising inexorably from its ashes.

‘Painful and brilliant – I loved it’ – Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and Either/Or