3 hours ago
5
Lies offend our sense of justice: generally, we want to see the liar unmasked and punished. But when the deception brings no material gain, we might also be curious about what purpose the lie serves – what particular need of their own the liar is attempting to meet. This is precisely what Grace Murray’s witty, assured debut explores: not just the consequences of a lie but the ways in which it can, paradoxically, reveal certain truths.
At a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year by claiming that her father has just died of a heart attack. In fact, he is alive and well back in Lichfield, England. This lie is the jumping-off point for an unpacking of Charlotte’s psychology, as well as the catalyst for her relationship with fellow student Katarina, a quasi-love story that forms the book’s main narrative.
Murray’s prose has an energising precision and originality, and the campus setting is a rich source of both comedy and social commentary. There’s some excellent art school satire throughout, as when Charlotte’s academic adviser tells her, by way of encouragement: “We don’t like failing people here.” She responds, laconically, “I know,” before silently reflecting on previous final projects students have turned in, including “de-shelled M&Ms; a bathroom selfie series; a felt-tip drawing of Jeff Buckley”. Murray’s comedy is perfectly judged throughout: it never overplays its hand or outstays its welcome.
But this is not primarily a comic novel, or if it is, it’s a very sad one. Charlotte’s relationship with Katarina has a doomed, precarious quality from the start, undermined not only by Charlotte’s deception but by her emotional detachment, her attempts to become, in her own words, “an emotionless eunuch”. With psychological acuity, Murray creates a distinct sense of the women’s opposing natures, Katarina’s buoyant sweetness contrasting with Charlotte’s coldness.
This kind of narrator can be tricky to pull off, creating a vacuum at the heart of a book. Murray seems well aware of this. Charlotte tells us: “My personality could be characterised by a distinct lack – of almost everything. Lying was one of the only things I did for myself, the only time I felt active, a real person, and I was good at it. But it was just another absence, this inability to be honest.”
Occasionally, in the first part of the novel, the dissociation of Charlotte’s voice might feel a little overdone (“When I came back, Lars was waiting for me, phone still in hand. I might have been crying – red-rimmed, a raw, bloated face – but it was hard to tell. I might have been fine”). But while some narratives eventually start to buckle under the weight of the voice, the opposite is true here. The cumulative effect is powerful, and there is a subtle shift as the novel goes on, a gradual increase in depth and emotion. Late on, Charlotte notes her own resistance to making fun of her slightly pathetic adviser, blaming Katarina for this alteration: “Before her, nobody had a context. She had opened me up to it, to the idea of the man’s twin bed, his daily teeter over to the sink, fluoxetine prescription in his cabinet.” By the end of the novel, the impact of Charlotte’s narration has changed from deliberately alienating to deeply moving, with scarcely a false note along the way.
With characteristic discernment, Murray resists any neat, sentimental resolution to the story. I had one reservation about the final quarter of the book, when a significant revelation lands that is suggested as at least a partial explanation for Charlotte’s lie. For me, the novel would have been stronger without this, or at least without it being presented as a late-stage reveal; the structure meant that this aspect felt a little underexplored. Overall, however, Murray displays keen narrative instincts and a perfect ear for prose.
It’s hard to make any reference to a young author’s age without sounding patronising, so I’m reluctant to labour the fact that Murray is just 22. But she deserves credit for, I assume, writing much of this novel before she was old enough to buy a beer in the country where it’s set. Not that she needs it; this is a superb debut for a writer of any age.
