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Liar
An intense memoir about mental illness, memory and storytelling, from an acclaimed novelist.
When Rob Roberge learns that he's likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he is terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record the most formative moments of his life—ranging from the brutal murder of his childhood girlfriend, to a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, to opening for famed indie band Yo La Tengo at The Fillmore in San Francisco. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile the stories that lay at the heart of our self-conception really are.
As Liar twists and turns through Roberge’s life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll on its head. Darkly funny and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down and out existence cobbled together across the country, from musicians’ crashpads around Boston, to seedy bars popular with sideshow freaks in Florida, to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep addiction and mental illness from destroying the good life he has built in his better moments, he is forced to acknowledge the increasingly blurred line between the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.
When Rob Roberge learns that he's likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he is terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record the most formative moments of his life—ranging from the brutal murder of his childhood girlfriend, to a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, to opening for famed indie band Yo La Tengo at The Fillmore in San Francisco. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile the stories that lay at the heart of our self-conception really are.
As Liar twists and turns through Roberge’s life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll on its head. Darkly funny and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down and out existence cobbled together across the country, from musicians’ crashpads around Boston, to seedy bars popular with sideshow freaks in Florida, to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep addiction and mental illness from destroying the good life he has built in his better moments, he is forced to acknowledge the increasingly blurred line between the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 9, 2016
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March 7, 2019
You have scars you lie about and scars you tell the truth about.
a memoir in second person?? what a country!
not only is this told in second person (where you have experienced some truly horrible shit, my friend), but it's also told in nonlinear, occasionally contradictory snippets as roberge, who may or may not have CTE; that condition football players get from being clonked in the head all day, featured in that movie where will smith tries really hard to win an oscar by saying his line twice for emphasis
and also depicted by treat williams on SVU:
and which can only be diagnosed in an autopsy, records his memories in case he starts forgetting huge chunks of his life due to his condition. yes, i made a mess of that sentence, breaking it up with all those pictures, but i regret nothing.
along the way, he begins to realize how many of what he's always thought of as memories might be misremembrances, flat-out lies to shore up the mythology he's constructed about himself for others or his ownself, or told because he's ashamed about not remembering so much of his life prior to the maybe-CTE diagnosis, simply because his lifestyle of excess:
You don't remember how you get a lot of your scars. You wake up for years from drunken and drugged blackouts with deep bruises and gashes and cuts. Friends tell you how you got some of them. Others still remain a mystery. You have told a lie about almost every one of them--whether you remember how you got them or not--to friends, to people at parties and in bars, to lovers who see you naked. Sometimes you tell the truth. Someone will ask about one of your scars and you will say you have no idea where it came from, and you feel better for having told the truth, but worse and deeply regretful that it is the truth. That you have wasted so many years of your life. That for years you only knew what you had done the night before because a friend or lover would tell you.
it must be said that rob roberge is not a professional football player and that his possible CTE would be a result of concussions occurring while playing basketball as a teen, head-slamming seizures while intoxicated, an industrial-sized can of hot fudge falling on his head when he worked at häagen-dazs… make a movie of that, hollywood!
on top of the repeated head trauma and the addictive personality leading to roberge's overindulgences in alcohol, drugs, and casual sex, this guy's also got a serious bipolar condition for which he mostly takes his medicine but which still causes him enough manic episodes during which he remembers nothing to be more than a minor inconvenience. his situation isn't always common knowledge even among his friends and loved ones, so these episodes can be misinterpreted by others at great personal cost.
but at least it sounds pretty:
It's like the MRIs you will later see of your brain. The bipolar brain lights up and fires differently than a normal brain. At your particular baseline -- which is a state known as hypomania -- your brain looks like a lovely planet covered with an electrical storm. A green-and-red planet with glowing white-hot veins firing, connecting everything. It looks incredible, impossibly beautiful. It's where all your trouble lies.
going into this, i was actually bracing myself for this guy to be more of an asshole. when you couple addiction with a brain chemistry that gives you the equivalent of a blackout experience where you're unmoored from restraint or typical standards of behavior, well… anything can happen, and usually it'll fall on the side of "dickish," as unintentional as it may be.
and maybe Home is Burning lowered my standards of 'dickish' to a dangerous level, but this guy's shitty behavior wasn't shitty enough to make me uncomfortable while reading this book, and he was actually funny as opposed to dan marshall, whose desperate clownishness made that book such a drag to read.
this one, on the other hand, just flows in a delightful way. i'd been reading a book i just couldn't get into, so i picked this one up before bed, intending to read a chapter or two to get a sense of it, and i ended up staying up until 5 in the morning and finishing the whole damn thing. the fact that it's mostly written in these little bite-sized fragments makes it incredibly zoomy to read, and you're propelled from one little chunk of a memory, one filed-away statistic, one anecdote heard along the way, one fragment of life after another, not even necessarily connected by anything obvious, mirroring the way things float your own head, with your own memories. i mean, i assume. i don't know your head.
here are a few samples so you can get a sense of it the way it moves, but they're not necessarily in the book-order or even the complete snippet. i've selected to suit my own tastes and interests.
-You are nine years old. You have saved your money from allowance and mowing lawns and harvesting potatoes at Johnson's Farm, and you have purchased Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run at the Sam Goody at the mall.
You look at the cover. Bruce Springsteen is cool. He's got a guitar. Guitar players are cool -- even at nine years old you know that much. Your dad, who's a narcotics officer, says Springsteen's dressed like a homeless fucking hippie. By nine, you have already decided where "homeless fucking hippie" falls in relation to "narcotics officer" on the bell graph of cool.
-You have given two blow jobs in your life. The first was purely out of curiosity. You wanted to know what it was like. And it was, if not something you really wanted to repeat, interesting. You think cocks are pretty interesting. You think they would be a lot more interesting if they were attached to women.
-A friend tells you that in twenty-three of the last twenty-seven ring deaths in professional boxing, the father was the cornerman.
It makes sense. A fighter in trouble would never quit on his father -- no matter what kind of relationship they had.
And a fighter unable to protect himself is too far gone. By the time a punch can kill you, you're not even conscious enough to quit. The fighter is helpless. Only the cornerman throwing in the towel can save him.
Twenty-three fathers didn't throw that towel.
-If Audrey Hepburn shaved her head and looked like you should never, ever fuck with her, she might have looked like Michelle Easter. You are smitten. She, at best, doesn't seem to be.
-Knowing something may make it a fact, but feeling something makes it a truth. And the truth is you are trapped. You have nowhere left to go that doesn't make you feel like your life has added up, in the end and despite some great moments, to you being a loser who just can't stay clean. Who can't keep people happy. Who can't function in this world. You're done. Defeated.
-You are in love with Lisa, who once left you for a woman but is now sleeping with you again, and she has always wanted to fuck on a bed of rose petals. She has had this fantasy for years. The night before her birthday, you and your friend Nick pull every last rose from the Boston Common. You pay Nick with a baggie of pot and he wanders off down Charles Street. You put the clipped rose heads in five-gallon paint buckets and carry the buckets over to Lisa's apartment and you pluck all the petals and spread them on her bed before she gets home from her late poetry class.
It does not end well. Roses have insects. Lots of them.
But at least you tried. And you showed Lisa that she most certainly did not, from then on, want a bed of rose petals.
in a way, this book reminds me of The World is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of the Apocalypse, in which personal memoir alternates with history, pop culture, song lyrics and all sorts of other stuff in a poetical-slipstreamy journey about … endings, i guess. joni tevis doesn't write hers in nuggets like this, but the unexpected connective tissues between her associative leaps are similar and they stir the same dream-logic parts of the brain as this one. Liar is earthier and ruder and more debauched than tevis' focus, but it definitely awakens the same mind pockets. in me, anyway. again, your brain differs from my brain. and is likely better at math.
fast, funny, and not too douchey.
what more could you want from a book?
let's call it a four. i've been feeling very four-y lately.
***********************************************
3.5-4, somewhere in there. i'll probably figure it out while i'm reviewing it. which is coming. LGM.
come to my blog!
a memoir in second person?? what a country!
not only is this told in second person (where you have experienced some truly horrible shit, my friend), but it's also told in nonlinear, occasionally contradictory snippets as roberge, who may or may not have CTE; that condition football players get from being clonked in the head all day, featured in that movie where will smith tries really hard to win an oscar by saying his line twice for emphasis
and also depicted by treat williams on SVU:
and which can only be diagnosed in an autopsy, records his memories in case he starts forgetting huge chunks of his life due to his condition. yes, i made a mess of that sentence, breaking it up with all those pictures, but i regret nothing.
along the way, he begins to realize how many of what he's always thought of as memories might be misremembrances, flat-out lies to shore up the mythology he's constructed about himself for others or his ownself, or told because he's ashamed about not remembering so much of his life prior to the maybe-CTE diagnosis, simply because his lifestyle of excess:
You don't remember how you get a lot of your scars. You wake up for years from drunken and drugged blackouts with deep bruises and gashes and cuts. Friends tell you how you got some of them. Others still remain a mystery. You have told a lie about almost every one of them--whether you remember how you got them or not--to friends, to people at parties and in bars, to lovers who see you naked. Sometimes you tell the truth. Someone will ask about one of your scars and you will say you have no idea where it came from, and you feel better for having told the truth, but worse and deeply regretful that it is the truth. That you have wasted so many years of your life. That for years you only knew what you had done the night before because a friend or lover would tell you.
it must be said that rob roberge is not a professional football player and that his possible CTE would be a result of concussions occurring while playing basketball as a teen, head-slamming seizures while intoxicated, an industrial-sized can of hot fudge falling on his head when he worked at häagen-dazs… make a movie of that, hollywood!
on top of the repeated head trauma and the addictive personality leading to roberge's overindulgences in alcohol, drugs, and casual sex, this guy's also got a serious bipolar condition for which he mostly takes his medicine but which still causes him enough manic episodes during which he remembers nothing to be more than a minor inconvenience. his situation isn't always common knowledge even among his friends and loved ones, so these episodes can be misinterpreted by others at great personal cost.
but at least it sounds pretty:
It's like the MRIs you will later see of your brain. The bipolar brain lights up and fires differently than a normal brain. At your particular baseline -- which is a state known as hypomania -- your brain looks like a lovely planet covered with an electrical storm. A green-and-red planet with glowing white-hot veins firing, connecting everything. It looks incredible, impossibly beautiful. It's where all your trouble lies.
going into this, i was actually bracing myself for this guy to be more of an asshole. when you couple addiction with a brain chemistry that gives you the equivalent of a blackout experience where you're unmoored from restraint or typical standards of behavior, well… anything can happen, and usually it'll fall on the side of "dickish," as unintentional as it may be.
and maybe Home is Burning lowered my standards of 'dickish' to a dangerous level, but this guy's shitty behavior wasn't shitty enough to make me uncomfortable while reading this book, and he was actually funny as opposed to dan marshall, whose desperate clownishness made that book such a drag to read.
this one, on the other hand, just flows in a delightful way. i'd been reading a book i just couldn't get into, so i picked this one up before bed, intending to read a chapter or two to get a sense of it, and i ended up staying up until 5 in the morning and finishing the whole damn thing. the fact that it's mostly written in these little bite-sized fragments makes it incredibly zoomy to read, and you're propelled from one little chunk of a memory, one filed-away statistic, one anecdote heard along the way, one fragment of life after another, not even necessarily connected by anything obvious, mirroring the way things float your own head, with your own memories. i mean, i assume. i don't know your head.
here are a few samples so you can get a sense of it the way it moves, but they're not necessarily in the book-order or even the complete snippet. i've selected to suit my own tastes and interests.
-You are nine years old. You have saved your money from allowance and mowing lawns and harvesting potatoes at Johnson's Farm, and you have purchased Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run at the Sam Goody at the mall.
You look at the cover. Bruce Springsteen is cool. He's got a guitar. Guitar players are cool -- even at nine years old you know that much. Your dad, who's a narcotics officer, says Springsteen's dressed like a homeless fucking hippie. By nine, you have already decided where "homeless fucking hippie" falls in relation to "narcotics officer" on the bell graph of cool.
-You have given two blow jobs in your life. The first was purely out of curiosity. You wanted to know what it was like. And it was, if not something you really wanted to repeat, interesting. You think cocks are pretty interesting. You think they would be a lot more interesting if they were attached to women.
-A friend tells you that in twenty-three of the last twenty-seven ring deaths in professional boxing, the father was the cornerman.
It makes sense. A fighter in trouble would never quit on his father -- no matter what kind of relationship they had.
And a fighter unable to protect himself is too far gone. By the time a punch can kill you, you're not even conscious enough to quit. The fighter is helpless. Only the cornerman throwing in the towel can save him.
Twenty-three fathers didn't throw that towel.
-If Audrey Hepburn shaved her head and looked like you should never, ever fuck with her, she might have looked like Michelle Easter. You are smitten. She, at best, doesn't seem to be.
-Knowing something may make it a fact, but feeling something makes it a truth. And the truth is you are trapped. You have nowhere left to go that doesn't make you feel like your life has added up, in the end and despite some great moments, to you being a loser who just can't stay clean. Who can't keep people happy. Who can't function in this world. You're done. Defeated.
-You are in love with Lisa, who once left you for a woman but is now sleeping with you again, and she has always wanted to fuck on a bed of rose petals. She has had this fantasy for years. The night before her birthday, you and your friend Nick pull every last rose from the Boston Common. You pay Nick with a baggie of pot and he wanders off down Charles Street. You put the clipped rose heads in five-gallon paint buckets and carry the buckets over to Lisa's apartment and you pluck all the petals and spread them on her bed before she gets home from her late poetry class.
It does not end well. Roses have insects. Lots of them.
But at least you tried. And you showed Lisa that she most certainly did not, from then on, want a bed of rose petals.
in a way, this book reminds me of The World is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of the Apocalypse, in which personal memoir alternates with history, pop culture, song lyrics and all sorts of other stuff in a poetical-slipstreamy journey about … endings, i guess. joni tevis doesn't write hers in nuggets like this, but the unexpected connective tissues between her associative leaps are similar and they stir the same dream-logic parts of the brain as this one. Liar is earthier and ruder and more debauched than tevis' focus, but it definitely awakens the same mind pockets. in me, anyway. again, your brain differs from my brain. and is likely better at math.
fast, funny, and not too douchey.
what more could you want from a book?
let's call it a four. i've been feeling very four-y lately.
***********************************************
3.5-4, somewhere in there. i'll probably figure it out while i'm reviewing it. which is coming. LGM.
Shelved as 'dnf'
March 10, 2016"A darkly funny, intense memoir about mental illness, memory and storytelling, from an acclaimed novelist."
Well. This one just isn't working for me. A non-linear collection of stories about the authors struggle with mental illness, memory loss, and other events that I still can't figure out the relevance of. The author will sometimes at the end of the story admit he made it up, and it makes you question what exactly is true in this memoir.
I understand the goal it's trying to accomplish, but I'm going to have to put this one to the side.
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.
Well. This one just isn't working for me. A non-linear collection of stories about the authors struggle with mental illness, memory loss, and other events that I still can't figure out the relevance of. The author will sometimes at the end of the story admit he made it up, and it makes you question what exactly is true in this memoir.
I understand the goal it's trying to accomplish, but I'm going to have to put this one to the side.
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.
February 22, 2016
LIAR is, ironically, a gut wrenchingly honest self-portrait. I always feel uncomfortable rating memoirs, especially ones that deal with trauma, and Rob Roberge has dealt with far more than his fair share of traumatic shit. I am tremendously impressed with anyone who is willing to expose themselves as drastically as Roberge has in this book.
April 27, 2016
Thank you to Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book.
I absolutely loved this book. This is Roberge's memoir. Snippets and pictures of parts of his life. He was a hard drinking, drug addicted sex addict, who has bipolar disorder. Always brutally honest, and at times hard to read, Roberge is putting down his life story because he may not remember it later. He has had so many concussions in hi lifetime, that doctors are afraid he may suffer from CTE, a degenerative brain disease that can only be diagnosed post-mortem.
The coolest part of this book is the writing style. It is told completely in the second person. He writes as if you the reader are experiencing everything he has. It is incredibly powerful, and moving. I loved this book for its honesty in examining mental illness. It helps stop the stigma associated with talking about it. Well done.
I absolutely loved this book. This is Roberge's memoir. Snippets and pictures of parts of his life. He was a hard drinking, drug addicted sex addict, who has bipolar disorder. Always brutally honest, and at times hard to read, Roberge is putting down his life story because he may not remember it later. He has had so many concussions in hi lifetime, that doctors are afraid he may suffer from CTE, a degenerative brain disease that can only be diagnosed post-mortem.
The coolest part of this book is the writing style. It is told completely in the second person. He writes as if you the reader are experiencing everything he has. It is incredibly powerful, and moving. I loved this book for its honesty in examining mental illness. It helps stop the stigma associated with talking about it. Well done.
June 26, 2016
I went into this one with no real expectations but found myself consistently blown away by how good it was. Roberge's scattered nonlinear life memories are multi-faceted--deeply personal, sad (often crushing actually), sometimes funny, consistently reflective, no-BS, and totally self-accountable. On top of all that, there are times when Roberge just mentions some sad suicide or death that he has thought about. Dude is dropping hints like crazy about his inner-darkness! But it's so good and I was in a trance by his brutal honesty. It's the kind of book that made me want to write him a letter. Stellar.
January 23, 2016
Holy S**t! This is one wild and crazy tale of mental illness and drug addition, made even more heart-breaking because of the musical and writing talent of author, and his desperate efforts to control his mind and his life. The book is a jumble of scenes that jump around in time from the author's childhood through adulthood. I seriously could not put this book down. The vivid, arresting writing kept me turning pages and even the use of "you" when the author really means "I" did not bother me like it usually does. Excellent book for those who like dark stories and sharp writing.
March 1, 2016
Received as an uncorrected proof from LibraryThing for an honest review.
The first time I ever met Memoir was at the back of a high school creative writing class. If you've never been in a creative writing class or have always plopped down front and center in eager anticipation of being doused in literary genius, I highly suggest a trip down the row to a seat at the back for a change if you're given the opportunity. The literary genius might thin out a little bit from point A to point B but I believe it has its own charm; somewhat like sitting at the back of the bus, the vibe is different. Especially when paired with the inebriating combination of dust motes and straying sun rays that a well-placed window provides.
Our teacher, a passionate proponent of daily free writing and red gel pens, stood at the front of the room and settled into a reading from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Memoir expanded, as if her presence were illumined. Previously we'd been on speaking terms but never really connected. She ran with a different crowd. Suddenly, there she was - a presence that was gaining the gravity of a hard and fast crush.
I think it was the energy and beauty of Cisneros' vignettes that really pulled the curtain up on how enticing Memoir was. At least that's how it connected in my mind for years, one enhanced by the other with Cisneros' style lingering over any thought of Memoir and shaping the ideal.
When I received Roberge's Liar the first thing I noticed was the style. Roberge delivers his memoir in dated bursts; the dates scattered throughout, giving the book a more conversational feel than a chronological one. It's an intriguing style and adds its own texture to the book. Much as Cisneros' vignettes shape the taste and texture of The House.
Though I skimmed through the book when I first got it, I put it off to the side for a bit. I was wary of the content. I hadn't read anything by Roberge previously but I had checked out the synopsis of the book and knew it encompassed Roberge's struggles with addiction and mental illness. I think it's increasingly important to have realistic accounts of these subjects, among others, out in the world but I tend to shy away from shock-the-reader writers. I wasn't sure where this book would fall and I think its synopsis does it a bit of a disservice in this regard. Namely in its opening line:
"An intense memoir about mental illness, memory and storytelling, from an acclaimed novelist."
Effecting content about the realistic struggles of those with addictions, of any kind, and mental illness is important but affected content does more harm than good in my opinion. Though it was difficult to read parts of Roberge's book I've come away from it believing it to be the former rather than the latter.
There were parts I didn't like (or didn't get). I didn't get the point of Roberge enlisting historical reference in his memoir. Other than a recurring story concerning the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic that is expanded upon throughout the book and a couple references to cases of CTE, included references felt like a detraction rather than an aide to the overall vibe of the book. Also, while its style is intriguing, it began to wear a bit as the book went on. There are so many events and so many people mentioned in this memoir that details get a bit buried in such a scattered account.
Overall, however, I liked the book for one main reason. It is not the book to read if you are battling addiction, self harm, and/or mental illness and you want something consistently uplifting to get you through a bad moment. It's a raw account of what these struggles feel like and, as such, it is both triggering and emotional. But having such an account that you can relate to, even if only in small parts, is important. I would recommend this book to those who can empathize with or have experienced such struggles with the warning that is a heavy read, one that you might need to step away from along the way but one that certainly has something to offer.
The first time I ever met Memoir was at the back of a high school creative writing class. If you've never been in a creative writing class or have always plopped down front and center in eager anticipation of being doused in literary genius, I highly suggest a trip down the row to a seat at the back for a change if you're given the opportunity. The literary genius might thin out a little bit from point A to point B but I believe it has its own charm; somewhat like sitting at the back of the bus, the vibe is different. Especially when paired with the inebriating combination of dust motes and straying sun rays that a well-placed window provides.
Our teacher, a passionate proponent of daily free writing and red gel pens, stood at the front of the room and settled into a reading from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Memoir expanded, as if her presence were illumined. Previously we'd been on speaking terms but never really connected. She ran with a different crowd. Suddenly, there she was - a presence that was gaining the gravity of a hard and fast crush.
I think it was the energy and beauty of Cisneros' vignettes that really pulled the curtain up on how enticing Memoir was. At least that's how it connected in my mind for years, one enhanced by the other with Cisneros' style lingering over any thought of Memoir and shaping the ideal.
When I received Roberge's Liar the first thing I noticed was the style. Roberge delivers his memoir in dated bursts; the dates scattered throughout, giving the book a more conversational feel than a chronological one. It's an intriguing style and adds its own texture to the book. Much as Cisneros' vignettes shape the taste and texture of The House.
Though I skimmed through the book when I first got it, I put it off to the side for a bit. I was wary of the content. I hadn't read anything by Roberge previously but I had checked out the synopsis of the book and knew it encompassed Roberge's struggles with addiction and mental illness. I think it's increasingly important to have realistic accounts of these subjects, among others, out in the world but I tend to shy away from shock-the-reader writers. I wasn't sure where this book would fall and I think its synopsis does it a bit of a disservice in this regard. Namely in its opening line:
"An intense memoir about mental illness, memory and storytelling, from an acclaimed novelist."
Effecting content about the realistic struggles of those with addictions, of any kind, and mental illness is important but affected content does more harm than good in my opinion. Though it was difficult to read parts of Roberge's book I've come away from it believing it to be the former rather than the latter.
There were parts I didn't like (or didn't get). I didn't get the point of Roberge enlisting historical reference in his memoir. Other than a recurring story concerning the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic that is expanded upon throughout the book and a couple references to cases of CTE, included references felt like a detraction rather than an aide to the overall vibe of the book. Also, while its style is intriguing, it began to wear a bit as the book went on. There are so many events and so many people mentioned in this memoir that details get a bit buried in such a scattered account.
Overall, however, I liked the book for one main reason. It is not the book to read if you are battling addiction, self harm, and/or mental illness and you want something consistently uplifting to get you through a bad moment. It's a raw account of what these struggles feel like and, as such, it is both triggering and emotional. But having such an account that you can relate to, even if only in small parts, is important. I would recommend this book to those who can empathize with or have experienced such struggles with the warning that is a heavy read, one that you might need to step away from along the way but one that certainly has something to offer.
November 20, 2015
I received this DRC free of charge from Crown Books and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. To be honest, it is the second-worst galley I have ever read. (The very worst lacked punctuation and was unreadable.) I wondered how a book like this wound up with such a reputable publisher; an internet search tells me that he has written other books that were well received. But I can’t find any redeeming value here. I actually came out of it feeling as if I’d been played, and I read it free.
This memoir is billed as a testament of sorts to the writer’s mental illness. I have a relative who struggles with bipolar disorder, and I like the idea of educating the public and of advocating for greater support and funding for those struggling with mental illness and also addiction issues, which are another key part of this book (if it can be said to have parts at all). The two often go hand-in-hand, the mentally ill using alcohol and/or street drugs to self-medicate. So I was on board when I began reading. But soon, I found excuses to read other DRC’s instead. Today, I made myself finish this thing so I could write the review and move on.
Liar isn’t even really a memoir. Let’s start with the title; some of what is in the book is true, some of it is invented, and we don’t get to know which is which. As if that weren’t bad enough, random dark matters (the death of the last passenger pigeon is one) are dropped into the text in no particular order. In fact, the text itself is not linear. This is clearly intentional, with things that happened (or didn’t happen) from 1977 dropped in between what happened (or not) in 1995, or 1982, etc. to let us see how confused is the mind of the mentally ill individual. The whole book is a mishmash of horrors that may or may not have transpired, just as the stricken person’s mind may not always be able to discern the real from the imagined. But for that, we hardly need a whole book; one short chapter would do the trick. I wanted to believe it would prove to be an artistic and if hard to read, avante garde approach to bipolar disorder; by the end, my head hurt and I was pissed.
How can anyone charge money for this?
Part of the reason I wanted to read Roberge’s galley is because it is billed as “blackly comic and brutally frank”, but it isn’t comic, and it isn’t frank. I found two (very, very darkly) humorous moments roughly between the 15% and 20% mark and thought maybe this was where the story would get rolling. Not so much. Nothing else—and I mean nothing else—was amusing. If it had been billed more accurately as merely dark and brutal, I would not have gone anywhere near it, nor do I recommend it to you. If it were at least entirely truthful, however disorienting and disjointed its telling, I could say it shines a light on the mental health crisis in the U.S., but since some of it is just tossed in for the hell of it and didn’t occur, I can’t even, in good conscience, recommend it to those researching bipolar disorder. How could a researcher cite this book in an academic publication?
The only positive thing I can say about this shipwreck of a book, apart from its accurate punctuation, is that no matter how bad your own life looks right now, it probably looks better than this.
This memoir is billed as a testament of sorts to the writer’s mental illness. I have a relative who struggles with bipolar disorder, and I like the idea of educating the public and of advocating for greater support and funding for those struggling with mental illness and also addiction issues, which are another key part of this book (if it can be said to have parts at all). The two often go hand-in-hand, the mentally ill using alcohol and/or street drugs to self-medicate. So I was on board when I began reading. But soon, I found excuses to read other DRC’s instead. Today, I made myself finish this thing so I could write the review and move on.
Liar isn’t even really a memoir. Let’s start with the title; some of what is in the book is true, some of it is invented, and we don’t get to know which is which. As if that weren’t bad enough, random dark matters (the death of the last passenger pigeon is one) are dropped into the text in no particular order. In fact, the text itself is not linear. This is clearly intentional, with things that happened (or didn’t happen) from 1977 dropped in between what happened (or not) in 1995, or 1982, etc. to let us see how confused is the mind of the mentally ill individual. The whole book is a mishmash of horrors that may or may not have transpired, just as the stricken person’s mind may not always be able to discern the real from the imagined. But for that, we hardly need a whole book; one short chapter would do the trick. I wanted to believe it would prove to be an artistic and if hard to read, avante garde approach to bipolar disorder; by the end, my head hurt and I was pissed.
How can anyone charge money for this?
Part of the reason I wanted to read Roberge’s galley is because it is billed as “blackly comic and brutally frank”, but it isn’t comic, and it isn’t frank. I found two (very, very darkly) humorous moments roughly between the 15% and 20% mark and thought maybe this was where the story would get rolling. Not so much. Nothing else—and I mean nothing else—was amusing. If it had been billed more accurately as merely dark and brutal, I would not have gone anywhere near it, nor do I recommend it to you. If it were at least entirely truthful, however disorienting and disjointed its telling, I could say it shines a light on the mental health crisis in the U.S., but since some of it is just tossed in for the hell of it and didn’t occur, I can’t even, in good conscience, recommend it to those researching bipolar disorder. How could a researcher cite this book in an academic publication?
The only positive thing I can say about this shipwreck of a book, apart from its accurate punctuation, is that no matter how bad your own life looks right now, it probably looks better than this.
April 17, 2019
So honored to publish this memoir in paperback on Future Tense. A brilliant and one-of-a-kind memoir about mental illness, death, sex, love, memory, and so much more.
November 5, 2023
Omg Omg… amazing un put downable memoir! I was glued from the first page.
December 19, 2015
*thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*
Somewhere along the line I lost track of the idea that this was a memoir only to have it hit me about midway through the book. I kept having the sense that the story seemed real and then I felt like an uninformed jackass who doesn't read the jacket tags before he buys the book and then complains when the book is terrible. Well, the book was not terrible. It was odd and mind-numbing but not terrible. Written with an emphasis on the pronoun "you", it somehow felt like the reader becomes the narrator and all these memories are exiting my head in a long non-linear, drug-addled sort of interior monologue about my sexual escapades and my desire for more toxic substances. It's a miracle I'm not dead. Or that he's not dead. Whatever. The confusion is fitting. What struck me as interesting was being inside the mind of an addict, an obviously volatile and fragile space after having read this. What was puzzling was the intermittent mentions of random death, most by self-infliction. Most likely, they were added to provide some measure of contrast against a man admittedly stuck in a pattern of self-loathing and suicidal ideation. Yes, not a good times type of book despite all the "good times" he had. Unfortunately, repetition becomes a slight burden the further along the story unfolds and could end up being a distraction for some. Overall, if you are into the sex, drugs, and rock n roll lifestyle then this might be worth a look-see.
Somewhere along the line I lost track of the idea that this was a memoir only to have it hit me about midway through the book. I kept having the sense that the story seemed real and then I felt like an uninformed jackass who doesn't read the jacket tags before he buys the book and then complains when the book is terrible. Well, the book was not terrible. It was odd and mind-numbing but not terrible. Written with an emphasis on the pronoun "you", it somehow felt like the reader becomes the narrator and all these memories are exiting my head in a long non-linear, drug-addled sort of interior monologue about my sexual escapades and my desire for more toxic substances. It's a miracle I'm not dead. Or that he's not dead. Whatever. The confusion is fitting. What struck me as interesting was being inside the mind of an addict, an obviously volatile and fragile space after having read this. What was puzzling was the intermittent mentions of random death, most by self-infliction. Most likely, they were added to provide some measure of contrast against a man admittedly stuck in a pattern of self-loathing and suicidal ideation. Yes, not a good times type of book despite all the "good times" he had. Unfortunately, repetition becomes a slight burden the further along the story unfolds and could end up being a distraction for some. Overall, if you are into the sex, drugs, and rock n roll lifestyle then this might be worth a look-see.
February 19, 2016
I was not sure ... I really was not in the mood to read something down and sad but once I hit 50 pages I felt ready! I loved this book the depiction of time loss was wonderful and the confusion I felt worked as if you follow the mind of the author. Full review to come on my channel
June 23, 2022
Absolutely mesmerizing and unstoppable! Roberge brings deep honesty, vulnerability, and fearlessness through scenes that rock the years of blackouts and seizures, psychotic episodes and decades of drug/alcohol use and abstinence. What an unforgettable journey! DAMN! Here are some quotes from one of the BEST MEMOIRS EVER!
"Late in the term he asks you again what makes you think what you've written is a poem.
You may like him as a poet, but you hate him as a person. "I don't know. It's all skinny and on the left?"
"She says it again, "You are always so fucked up."
"I can't really talk about this right now," you finally manage to say. "I'm really fucked up.""
"People move around you in bovine scrums."
Unflinching and deeply relatable to many of us! Don't pass this one up! THE LOVE IS HUGE!
"Late in the term he asks you again what makes you think what you've written is a poem.
You may like him as a poet, but you hate him as a person. "I don't know. It's all skinny and on the left?"
"She says it again, "You are always so fucked up."
"I can't really talk about this right now," you finally manage to say. "I'm really fucked up.""
"People move around you in bovine scrums."
Unflinching and deeply relatable to many of us! Don't pass this one up! THE LOVE IS HUGE!
February 18, 2016
This book caught my attention, right from the 1st page:
The principal paired him with a new girl at school, told him to take care of her and show her around, in an attempt to keep him out of trouble. Then, she was killed. This was in 1977, and even 40 years later, he researched her death in an attempt to help himself feel better and less responsible.
Her killer was never found, and every day, he looked at men and thought they could be her killer, especially before he left his hometown at the age of 18.
The book is a memoir written with excerpts from different times in the author's life. In 1984, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, with rapid cycling and occasional psychotic episodes, and despite his doctor's many warnings, he continues to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol on top of his prescriptions.
This book, while not in chronological order, goes through the ups and downs of a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder, battling addiction, and sometimes trying to navigate life as best he can. While everyone's lives have ups and downs, these can be catastrophic when mental illness is thrown in the equation. When he is diagnosed with a disease that will likely take his memories from him, he decides to document all the crazy things from his life that he can remember...or mostly things that he remembers others telling him happened, since often he was not coherent enough to remember and had to rely on those present the night before to recall what happened the night before.
I <3 <3 <3 a good memoir! And this was a good memoir!
I also am going to school to be a therapist and have always been intrigued by learning about people's experiences with mental illnesses.
I'm not sure how I feel about the book jumping around from time to time, often years, or even decades apart. You read one excerpt from 1988, then read something that happened in 2013. I hoped that a reason for this would become apparent at some point, but I think the book would have been just as effective written in chronological order.... but maybe that's just me....
So, I'm speeding through this book, really enjoying it.... then it just ends!
I HATED THE ENDING OF THIS BOOK!
Right now, I cannot think of any other book that I hated the ending to it as much as this one!
I do not want to give the ultimate spoiler and ruin the ending, but it was not how the author should have ended it.
I actually had to check 3 times to make sure that I was actually reading the last page and that I had not, accidentally, skipped ahead or something, since I was reading the ebook on my phone.
That being said, overall, I really liked this book! (Yes, I did, even though I just ranted about the way it ended). I will not let the last few pages get in the way of my enjoyment of the rest of the book.
This book made me want to read other books by the author.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via First to Read, in exchange for an honest review.
The principal paired him with a new girl at school, told him to take care of her and show her around, in an attempt to keep him out of trouble. Then, she was killed. This was in 1977, and even 40 years later, he researched her death in an attempt to help himself feel better and less responsible.
Her killer was never found, and every day, he looked at men and thought they could be her killer, especially before he left his hometown at the age of 18.
The book is a memoir written with excerpts from different times in the author's life. In 1984, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, with rapid cycling and occasional psychotic episodes, and despite his doctor's many warnings, he continues to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol on top of his prescriptions.
This book, while not in chronological order, goes through the ups and downs of a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder, battling addiction, and sometimes trying to navigate life as best he can. While everyone's lives have ups and downs, these can be catastrophic when mental illness is thrown in the equation. When he is diagnosed with a disease that will likely take his memories from him, he decides to document all the crazy things from his life that he can remember...or mostly things that he remembers others telling him happened, since often he was not coherent enough to remember and had to rely on those present the night before to recall what happened the night before.
I <3 <3 <3 a good memoir! And this was a good memoir!
I also am going to school to be a therapist and have always been intrigued by learning about people's experiences with mental illnesses.
I'm not sure how I feel about the book jumping around from time to time, often years, or even decades apart. You read one excerpt from 1988, then read something that happened in 2013. I hoped that a reason for this would become apparent at some point, but I think the book would have been just as effective written in chronological order.... but maybe that's just me....
So, I'm speeding through this book, really enjoying it.... then it just ends!
I HATED THE ENDING OF THIS BOOK!
Right now, I cannot think of any other book that I hated the ending to it as much as this one!
I do not want to give the ultimate spoiler and ruin the ending, but it was not how the author should have ended it.
I actually had to check 3 times to make sure that I was actually reading the last page and that I had not, accidentally, skipped ahead or something, since I was reading the ebook on my phone.
That being said, overall, I really liked this book! (Yes, I did, even though I just ranted about the way it ended). I will not let the last few pages get in the way of my enjoyment of the rest of the book.
This book made me want to read other books by the author.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via First to Read, in exchange for an honest review.
February 11, 2016
Thank You to Crown Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of Rob Roberge's memoir, Liar, in exchange for an honest review.
PLOT- Writer and musician Rob Roberge is trying to process his diagnosis of possible degenerative memory loss. Looking towards his future, he reflects on his past, including drug and alcohol addictions and mental health issues. When we look at the memories and personal stories that form our identities, how many of these are accurate? How much can we trust in our core memories and how much does the truth even matter?
LIKE- Roberge has led a wild and reckless life, which makes for a compelling memoir. It's unusual to read writing in a second person POV, but it works very well in Liar. Roberge uses this perspective deftly. It supports the story and doesn't come off as a gimmick. I was pulled right into the action, which was uncomfortable in many of the grittier parts of the memoir. Second person perspective feels dangerous, close, and unsafe, a perfect choice for Liar.
Roberge suffered many concussions, which may have eventual led to his current memory loss. When we are young, we often don't think of the long-term consequences of our actions. In fact, Roberge mentions that he lived life fully intending on dying before thirty. Although, anyone could easily imagine the potentially devastating effects of heavy drug and alcohol abuse, I had never given much thought to the cumulative effects of multiple head traumas. This is timely, with the same issue arising in the film/book, Concussion.
Liar leaps through different memories spanning Roberge's life. It's as if Roberge took all of his important memories and wrote them on index cards, scrambled up the cards and told Liar in this random arrangement. I'm sure that plenty of thought and care went into the arrangement of the memories, to make the effect seem casual. It works. It especially works well to not have the story linger too long in the darker, more depressing years of his life. Floating between time periods serves to lighten the memoir.
I was drawn to Roberge's confession that sometimes he obsesses over other people's tragedies, for example the death of a classmate in elementary school. The internet has fueled this obsession, giving him easy access to information. This confession also played into the theme of memories and how we remember stories and "facts" from our childhood.
DISLIKE- Nothing. Liar is utterly compelling.
RECOMMEND- Yes! Liar isn't for people who like to read happy and uplifting stories. It's a very dark and heavy memoir. Fascinating and well-crafted, but dark. Buyer beware!
Side Note- As a current student, I got a kick out of the mention of UCLA Extension Writer's Program. His experience as an instructor and dealing with a crazy student cracked me up.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
PLOT- Writer and musician Rob Roberge is trying to process his diagnosis of possible degenerative memory loss. Looking towards his future, he reflects on his past, including drug and alcohol addictions and mental health issues. When we look at the memories and personal stories that form our identities, how many of these are accurate? How much can we trust in our core memories and how much does the truth even matter?
LIKE- Roberge has led a wild and reckless life, which makes for a compelling memoir. It's unusual to read writing in a second person POV, but it works very well in Liar. Roberge uses this perspective deftly. It supports the story and doesn't come off as a gimmick. I was pulled right into the action, which was uncomfortable in many of the grittier parts of the memoir. Second person perspective feels dangerous, close, and unsafe, a perfect choice for Liar.
Roberge suffered many concussions, which may have eventual led to his current memory loss. When we are young, we often don't think of the long-term consequences of our actions. In fact, Roberge mentions that he lived life fully intending on dying before thirty. Although, anyone could easily imagine the potentially devastating effects of heavy drug and alcohol abuse, I had never given much thought to the cumulative effects of multiple head traumas. This is timely, with the same issue arising in the film/book, Concussion.
Liar leaps through different memories spanning Roberge's life. It's as if Roberge took all of his important memories and wrote them on index cards, scrambled up the cards and told Liar in this random arrangement. I'm sure that plenty of thought and care went into the arrangement of the memories, to make the effect seem casual. It works. It especially works well to not have the story linger too long in the darker, more depressing years of his life. Floating between time periods serves to lighten the memoir.
I was drawn to Roberge's confession that sometimes he obsesses over other people's tragedies, for example the death of a classmate in elementary school. The internet has fueled this obsession, giving him easy access to information. This confession also played into the theme of memories and how we remember stories and "facts" from our childhood.
DISLIKE- Nothing. Liar is utterly compelling.
RECOMMEND- Yes! Liar isn't for people who like to read happy and uplifting stories. It's a very dark and heavy memoir. Fascinating and well-crafted, but dark. Buyer beware!
Side Note- As a current student, I got a kick out of the mention of UCLA Extension Writer's Program. His experience as an instructor and dealing with a crazy student cracked me up.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
May 7, 2016
First, a story about myself. When I was 18, my boyfriend and I were at a punk rock concert and a steel pole fell on us and cracked us both in the head. We went to the hospital, but basically refused treatment, as I remember it. Years, decades later, I realize I had a severe head injury. After that I didn't recognize numbers for quite some time, the concept of numbers, how they worked. It was impossible. I literally got more stupid, like the pole knocked a bunch of IQ out of me, permanently. I never again was as smart as I was pre-steel pole. And all the books I had read before? I know I read them, but don't ask me to tell you the plots. Same with science concepts, historical facts, anything. I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader.
I have Behcets Disease, which is both a nature and a nurture vasculitic disease, and I do think the steel pole accident set it into motion, though it didn't rear up until I turned 35.
Okay, so the book is a memoir about this guy, Rob, who had a ton of concussions growing up, and also loved himself some alcohol and pills. And is also a huge bipolar manic depressive. He writes about how all these things are intertwined, how he managed to fuck up his entire life because of pills and alcohol (my favorite kind of memoir! Ya'll know this), and mental illness, and yet, in spite of all of this, or perhaps because of all this, become a successful writer. This dude can write, people.
He also made me realize that a band a used to love in the early 2000s, Sparklehorse, and hadn't thought of in years and years - did you know that the lead singer killed himself? Yeah. Back in 2010. So that was very upsetting to me. Both because I didn't even realize I haven't thought of Sparklehorse in the last I don't know, eight years, and also because the lead singer is dead.
Everyone should read this book. Everyone.
I have Behcets Disease, which is both a nature and a nurture vasculitic disease, and I do think the steel pole accident set it into motion, though it didn't rear up until I turned 35.
Okay, so the book is a memoir about this guy, Rob, who had a ton of concussions growing up, and also loved himself some alcohol and pills. And is also a huge bipolar manic depressive. He writes about how all these things are intertwined, how he managed to fuck up his entire life because of pills and alcohol (my favorite kind of memoir! Ya'll know this), and mental illness, and yet, in spite of all of this, or perhaps because of all this, become a successful writer. This dude can write, people.
He also made me realize that a band a used to love in the early 2000s, Sparklehorse, and hadn't thought of in years and years - did you know that the lead singer killed himself? Yeah. Back in 2010. So that was very upsetting to me. Both because I didn't even realize I haven't thought of Sparklehorse in the last I don't know, eight years, and also because the lead singer is dead.
Everyone should read this book. Everyone.
March 8, 2016
How could I not read a book called LIAR: A MEMOIR? Memoirs often anger me with their forced narratives and narcissism. But Rob Roberge seemed to promise a honest look at the way the mind edits reality to suit its purposes, whether to tell a story or to boost an ego. He does this, to a degree, by first picking up the story of his struggles with mental illness and addiction and dropping it until the whole breaks into pieces scattered into a nonlinear structure, episodic like his breaks with reality. He writes of his personal history, the stories we tell others to define ourselves, and then goes back to acknowledge the lies in the storylines and the parts even he can’t recall. The fractured technique is appealing, as it works to deny our human habit of artificially slapping a beginning, middle and end to experience, and I enjoyed rubbernecking his many traumas. But after a while the endless fuck-ups and tragedies started to wear on me. It didn’t help that he’s in recovery, specifically Alcoholics Anonymous, which is hard for me to approach from anything like an impartial perspective because of my own personal history. That's my problem. But there was also too much pigeonholing for my tastes: I’m an addict. I’m bipolar. I’m a writer. I’m a musician. It begins to feel like a stage show less for my enjoyment or edification than to gratify some immature need of the author. That’s fine, it’s fun to play with your own shit. The problem is when you’re expected to like eating someone else’s.
April 10, 2016
Memory isn’t linear. It’s a convoluted mess of responses to chemical and physical stimuli. One thought leads to another and then you’re off into the wormhole of similar and related occurrences touch tagging each other with their emotions. Couple that with mental health, drug addiction, numerous concussions, the lies one tells, and that odd retained bit of trivia and you have Rob Roberge’s LIAR. With a lifetime’s worth of memories wadded together and flung onto the page in a manic explosion of details and imagery, the reader gets to experience just what it’s like to live in the mind of Rob Roberge. As always his prose is breathtakingly smooth and the content for this debut memoir is not only brilliant, but also heartbreaking, funny, sad, and incredibly compelling. Roberge delivers an honest look at himself that many writer’s couldn’t achieve. LIAR maybe Roberge’s finest work to date, which if you look at his previous books is saying quite a lot.
July 23, 2017
I'm not sure if I weren't "stuck" on flights from central Ohio to Phoenix I would have finished this book.
It is a memoir of a man who battles both addiction (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes) and bi-polar disorder. The book does NOT have a chronology that made any sense to me. Almost as if, he just wrote whatever popped into his head that day and then published as he wrote them rather than as he lived them. Some of the chronology didn't have to do with him, but were people who died (often committing suicide).
Despite it's slim 251 pages, I got lost with the number of girls he slept with. Who was who? Even this was HIS memoir, he included worry over an undiagnosed illness of his wife. I sure would like to know how that played out.
Also, for me, just telling me you went to bed with someone is enough. I don't need a blow by blow.
I received this book through Blogging for books for an honest review.
It is a memoir of a man who battles both addiction (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes) and bi-polar disorder. The book does NOT have a chronology that made any sense to me. Almost as if, he just wrote whatever popped into his head that day and then published as he wrote them rather than as he lived them. Some of the chronology didn't have to do with him, but were people who died (often committing suicide).
Despite it's slim 251 pages, I got lost with the number of girls he slept with. Who was who? Even this was HIS memoir, he included worry over an undiagnosed illness of his wife. I sure would like to know how that played out.
Also, for me, just telling me you went to bed with someone is enough. I don't need a blow by blow.
I received this book through Blogging for books for an honest review.
May 23, 2017
Roberge renders a vulnerable and heartbreaking account of his life-long struggles with addiction, mental illness, and TBI. He also explores the reliability of memory, both through exposition and through the structure and point of view through which he tells his story. The fragments gain power as we move through the text, just like our memory fragments do in real life. This book is so damn honest it often made me actually gasp (my husband would say, "good line?" And I'd say "freaking great line.")
April 15, 2019
Loved the non-linear structure, especially for a memoir about mental illness.
November 19, 2018
I picked this book up in a used bookstore. First because it’s a memoir. Second because I really loved the cover and the title.
I wasn’t familiar with Rob Roberge’s writing, but since reading this book all his other books are now on my to-buy and read list.
What I first found strange about this memoir was that it wasn’t written in first person but in second person, referring to himself as “you”.
Referring to the story of your life in this way creates a divide between the person telling the story and the person the story is about. It’s like he’s standing outside himself and telling another part of himself about what he did.
Not sure why he chose to write this way. Maybe for reasons of his not being able to clearly remember of a lot of events, I don’t know. But what I feel is that by not using first-person “I” it removes responsibility, almost like putting the blame on the other guy, “you did it. Not me, but YOU”. It kind of reminds me the phase from the late 70s “the Devil made me do” made popular by comedian actor Flip Wilson. Blame your actions on something or someone else.
The other interesting part to this memoir is the hopping around in the timeline, not just from past to present, but from past events, to more recent events, to specific dates, along with bits of historical facts, such as the murder of his childhood girlfriend, and quite a few bits of information regarding the Titanic.
Sometimes I experienced a bit of fatigue while reading this book. Sometimes it was as exhausting as I imagine living his life is. Maybe he wanted the reader to experience a bit of that, again, I don’t know.
All I do know is: it’s an interesting read about a man not only with a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, but also of a teacher of creative writing and of a man who plays guitar and sings with a band in LA, the Urinals.
If you enjoy a bit of a different read, then I recommend this book. It is a memoir like no other.
And to this end, I trust this book to be true, otherwise, Liar, liar, pants on fire!
I wasn’t familiar with Rob Roberge’s writing, but since reading this book all his other books are now on my to-buy and read list.
What I first found strange about this memoir was that it wasn’t written in first person but in second person, referring to himself as “you”.
Referring to the story of your life in this way creates a divide between the person telling the story and the person the story is about. It’s like he’s standing outside himself and telling another part of himself about what he did.
Not sure why he chose to write this way. Maybe for reasons of his not being able to clearly remember of a lot of events, I don’t know. But what I feel is that by not using first-person “I” it removes responsibility, almost like putting the blame on the other guy, “you did it. Not me, but YOU”. It kind of reminds me the phase from the late 70s “the Devil made me do” made popular by comedian actor Flip Wilson. Blame your actions on something or someone else.
The other interesting part to this memoir is the hopping around in the timeline, not just from past to present, but from past events, to more recent events, to specific dates, along with bits of historical facts, such as the murder of his childhood girlfriend, and quite a few bits of information regarding the Titanic.
Sometimes I experienced a bit of fatigue while reading this book. Sometimes it was as exhausting as I imagine living his life is. Maybe he wanted the reader to experience a bit of that, again, I don’t know.
All I do know is: it’s an interesting read about a man not only with a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, but also of a teacher of creative writing and of a man who plays guitar and sings with a band in LA, the Urinals.
If you enjoy a bit of a different read, then I recommend this book. It is a memoir like no other.
And to this end, I trust this book to be true, otherwise, Liar, liar, pants on fire!
June 19, 2016
I heard about this book from the Pen on Fire Speaker Series (Writers on Writing for my podcast enthusiasts). When Rob read an excerpt, I ordered the book before he finished reading. His writing is very strong and almost like a slap in the face when you begin the book.
The being said, it is the same story told a hundred different ways. It speaks to the writer's relationship with drugs, alcohol, women, and his mental health. It breaks your heart but I found myself reacting to it the same way I would react to a friend with a long term addiction; about three-quarters through the book I found myself thinking "is this guy ever going to get this shit together?"
The ending is far from conclusive. I won't say anything more than that. I wasn't unhappy with it but I will say, I can't imagine a life like Rob's. More so, I can't imagine surviving that life and writing about it. Unsure if the stories I told were truth or lies because I wasn't ever in a frame of mind to remember. The title is very apt.
This book kind of reminded me of "A Million Little Pieces" and I think it really speaks to the controversy of that book as well. For those who don't remember, James Fray wrote a book that broke the ground in terms of memoir lit and received world-renowned praise for the book until it was discovered that large parts of the book were very exaggerated if not completely false. The world (both literary critics and readers) chewed him up and spit him out after this was discovered. But after reading this book I can't help but wonder if this isn't the case for all addicts. Truth is variable - it is a matter of perception. When that perception is aided by the guild of narcotics and alcohol, who is to say what really defines the addict's truth? To quote Rob "just because it is true doesn't mean it was the truth".
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loved 'A Million Little Pieces'. Addiction told from a great writer's perspective - amazing.
Did I mention this book is written in the second person? That made the story for me - it was why I purchased the book. I'm not one for memoirs but I feel there is an unparalleled strength in the writing "You will remember the cop car. You remember her empty seat. You remember the science teacher, Mr. Karr, openly weeping. You will remember the school's floors already buffed and shines, ready for summer break" far better that if it had been told in first person. It was a very different experience all together.
The being said, it is the same story told a hundred different ways. It speaks to the writer's relationship with drugs, alcohol, women, and his mental health. It breaks your heart but I found myself reacting to it the same way I would react to a friend with a long term addiction; about three-quarters through the book I found myself thinking "is this guy ever going to get this shit together?"
The ending is far from conclusive. I won't say anything more than that. I wasn't unhappy with it but I will say, I can't imagine a life like Rob's. More so, I can't imagine surviving that life and writing about it. Unsure if the stories I told were truth or lies because I wasn't ever in a frame of mind to remember. The title is very apt.
This book kind of reminded me of "A Million Little Pieces" and I think it really speaks to the controversy of that book as well. For those who don't remember, James Fray wrote a book that broke the ground in terms of memoir lit and received world-renowned praise for the book until it was discovered that large parts of the book were very exaggerated if not completely false. The world (both literary critics and readers) chewed him up and spit him out after this was discovered. But after reading this book I can't help but wonder if this isn't the case for all addicts. Truth is variable - it is a matter of perception. When that perception is aided by the guild of narcotics and alcohol, who is to say what really defines the addict's truth? To quote Rob "just because it is true doesn't mean it was the truth".
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loved 'A Million Little Pieces'. Addiction told from a great writer's perspective - amazing.
Did I mention this book is written in the second person? That made the story for me - it was why I purchased the book. I'm not one for memoirs but I feel there is an unparalleled strength in the writing "You will remember the cop car. You remember her empty seat. You remember the science teacher, Mr. Karr, openly weeping. You will remember the school's floors already buffed and shines, ready for summer break" far better that if it had been told in first person. It was a very different experience all together.
February 13, 2016
“You tell yourself, over and over, that you thought you were better than this. But you are not. And you may never be better than this.”
It has been a long, long time since a book has affected me as deeply as Liar has. This book is raw, so much so that at some points you feel like you shouldn’t be reading it, that it’s too private. Have you ever seen someone you really love and admire in the hospital with a serious illness or injury? That’s the level of gut-wrenching vulnerability we’re talking about here.
One of my favorite writers, Lidia Yuknavitch, likes to say that “Good art should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” and that is exactly what this book does. This book is certainly not for everyone. For one thing, it’s graphic. At one point Roberge recounts one of his creative writing students asking him if all of his stories ended with him pissing blood, and she’s not far off the mark. Roberge is a recovering addict from everything – pills, booze, heroin, you name it. He’s had enough serious concussions to cause brain damage and memory loss. And to top it all off, he’s severely bipolar. He’s nothing short of a goddamned disaster of a human being, but this memoir is nothing short of a work of art. It’s frustrating and upsetting and disjointed but feels like the most accurate depiction of a life that I have ever read.
Yes, a memoir recounted by someone with admitted medical memory loss is a bit of a bizarre concept. At times you find yourself asking “did this really happen this way?” but you’re not alone, because at times Roberge stops the narrative to ask himself the same thing. But he’s so honest in his shortcomings in this regard, that any concern of being *lied to* fades away quickly. Maybe not everything in this book is completely factual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
If Rob Roberge is a liar, then he’s at least a devastatingly honest one.
*I received a complementary copy in exchange for an honest review through the Blogging for Books program.
It has been a long, long time since a book has affected me as deeply as Liar has. This book is raw, so much so that at some points you feel like you shouldn’t be reading it, that it’s too private. Have you ever seen someone you really love and admire in the hospital with a serious illness or injury? That’s the level of gut-wrenching vulnerability we’re talking about here.
One of my favorite writers, Lidia Yuknavitch, likes to say that “Good art should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” and that is exactly what this book does. This book is certainly not for everyone. For one thing, it’s graphic. At one point Roberge recounts one of his creative writing students asking him if all of his stories ended with him pissing blood, and she’s not far off the mark. Roberge is a recovering addict from everything – pills, booze, heroin, you name it. He’s had enough serious concussions to cause brain damage and memory loss. And to top it all off, he’s severely bipolar. He’s nothing short of a goddamned disaster of a human being, but this memoir is nothing short of a work of art. It’s frustrating and upsetting and disjointed but feels like the most accurate depiction of a life that I have ever read.
Yes, a memoir recounted by someone with admitted medical memory loss is a bit of a bizarre concept. At times you find yourself asking “did this really happen this way?” but you’re not alone, because at times Roberge stops the narrative to ask himself the same thing. But he’s so honest in his shortcomings in this regard, that any concern of being *lied to* fades away quickly. Maybe not everything in this book is completely factual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
If Rob Roberge is a liar, then he’s at least a devastatingly honest one.
*I received a complementary copy in exchange for an honest review through the Blogging for Books program.
December 17, 2015
A unique, fascinating, moving biography. LIAR is written in a fragmented style, jumping around in time, so that you never quite get a grasp on the timeline of the author's life. You don't need the times and dates to add up, however, to be drawn into this intense and poignant account of what it was like to be an addict losing great gaps of time, struggling through relationships, fighting loneliness and despair (and, on occasion, winning).
Written in the second person, which is rare, LIAR offers a glimpse into a mind that for decades was high-functioning AND deeply dependent on every imaginable drug. It illustrates in stark (and yes, sometimes darkly funny) ways just what life is like when you are terrified of your own brain, ashamed of what you've become and still trying, desperately, to function in a world that makes few allowances for those unable to cope in the usual ways.
I've always assumed that addicts who sought drugs indiscriminately began as pleasure-seekers whose habits got out of control. LIAR has shown me that, at least in this case, there wasn't that much pleasure involved. His addiction stemmed from a much deeper hunger, and from wonky brain chemistry, fear, trauma and pure physical misery. Despite all that, his talent is obvious, as is his moral courage. My admiration for the author's unflinching honestly, especially when he puts himself in the least possible flattering light, continued to grow.
Although the topic is heavy, the book isn't. It was a pleasure to read. Highly recommend. (Thank you, NetGalley!)
Written in the second person, which is rare, LIAR offers a glimpse into a mind that for decades was high-functioning AND deeply dependent on every imaginable drug. It illustrates in stark (and yes, sometimes darkly funny) ways just what life is like when you are terrified of your own brain, ashamed of what you've become and still trying, desperately, to function in a world that makes few allowances for those unable to cope in the usual ways.
I've always assumed that addicts who sought drugs indiscriminately began as pleasure-seekers whose habits got out of control. LIAR has shown me that, at least in this case, there wasn't that much pleasure involved. His addiction stemmed from a much deeper hunger, and from wonky brain chemistry, fear, trauma and pure physical misery. Despite all that, his talent is obvious, as is his moral courage. My admiration for the author's unflinching honestly, especially when he puts himself in the least possible flattering light, continued to grow.
Although the topic is heavy, the book isn't. It was a pleasure to read. Highly recommend. (Thank you, NetGalley!)
January 8, 2016
I loved this book and can't stop thinking about it. LIAR is written in the second-person POV, which is very hard to pull off, but I felt that Roberge did it, and moreover, that it was the most effective choice for him to tell this true (true-ish? true story about lying?) story, because the "you" pulls in the reader and allows you to feel you're one with the narrator, which makes it more sympathetic.
I wasn't able to figure out an organizing principle for the parts of the story (that is, the sections of the book), although to me the short segments -- which jump from year to year -- hung together thematically, especially as the book went on. I gave myself over to just experiencing the book and found that the flow worked just fine for me.
Most of all, Roberge's fragmented storytelling style worked beautifully to convey the sensation of living inside his narrator's mind, which is burdened by addiction (past and present, in the times the narration describes), frequent traumatic brain injury/concussion, and bipolar disorder. The story wound up being revealing of the narrator's persona as well as the situation of being that person, which is the most important/interesting aspect of this type of memoir, to me.
I'm not necessarily a big reader of addiction stories, but I read this book on the heels of BLACKOUT by Sarah Hepola and JESUS' SON by Denis Johnson, so perhaps that influenced my reading, but I enjoyed this book very much. It's especially interesting for writers and readers engaged in fragmented text.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wasn't able to figure out an organizing principle for the parts of the story (that is, the sections of the book), although to me the short segments -- which jump from year to year -- hung together thematically, especially as the book went on. I gave myself over to just experiencing the book and found that the flow worked just fine for me.
Most of all, Roberge's fragmented storytelling style worked beautifully to convey the sensation of living inside his narrator's mind, which is burdened by addiction (past and present, in the times the narration describes), frequent traumatic brain injury/concussion, and bipolar disorder. The story wound up being revealing of the narrator's persona as well as the situation of being that person, which is the most important/interesting aspect of this type of memoir, to me.
I'm not necessarily a big reader of addiction stories, but I read this book on the heels of BLACKOUT by Sarah Hepola and JESUS' SON by Denis Johnson, so perhaps that influenced my reading, but I enjoyed this book very much. It's especially interesting for writers and readers engaged in fragmented text.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 29, 2021
Dates. Memories. Snippets of time. That’s how this book starts out.
Instead of using the first person approach, as most memoirs do, Roberge uses second person. You are the story. You are living Roberge’s life. In one memory, you’re in 2009 – the next you’re in 1912. The jumps in memory read naturally, like they’d play out in your head.
Due to the jumps, it is difficult to pinpoint the timeline of the story. Events occur, but they are so randomly organized that there doesn’t seem to be much – if any – connection. While at first the random un-story-like telling is refreshing, it gets annoying after the first hundred or so pages. After awhile, it makes more sense to read it like individual stories rather than a cohesive whole.
He’s obsessed with death, including his own suicide. In a noteworthy quote at the end of the book Roberge writes, “This is what the world will sound like without you.”
This was a good book, very interesting. It’s definitely a look through Roberge’s eyes – as a memoir goes, this was a successful one.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from Blogging for Books for my honest review.
This review is also cross posted on https://www.allbehindasmile.com/liar-... .
Instead of using the first person approach, as most memoirs do, Roberge uses second person. You are the story. You are living Roberge’s life. In one memory, you’re in 2009 – the next you’re in 1912. The jumps in memory read naturally, like they’d play out in your head.
Due to the jumps, it is difficult to pinpoint the timeline of the story. Events occur, but they are so randomly organized that there doesn’t seem to be much – if any – connection. While at first the random un-story-like telling is refreshing, it gets annoying after the first hundred or so pages. After awhile, it makes more sense to read it like individual stories rather than a cohesive whole.
He’s obsessed with death, including his own suicide. In a noteworthy quote at the end of the book Roberge writes, “This is what the world will sound like without you.”
This was a good book, very interesting. It’s definitely a look through Roberge’s eyes – as a memoir goes, this was a successful one.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from Blogging for Books for my honest review.
This review is also cross posted on https://www.allbehindasmile.com/liar-... .
December 23, 2015
If you've ever wanted to know why seemingly normal middle class people become junkies this is the book for you. Rob Roberge recounts the harrowing story of his life of masochism, mental illness and drug and alchohol abuse in a raw stream of consciousness. Some of the stories he recounts are not easy to read for their frankness. However, you can't help but like Rob and feel empathy for the pain of his spiraling mental illness which has caused him to self medicate with drugs and alcohol. While being dark, Rob's deprecation and self loathing humanize him to the point where you find yourself hoping he'll find the peace he has earned after a life of intense pain. What's amazing about this tale is how readable it is despite the fact it recounts such horror. Even if you've never been in the exact situations Rob finds himself the themes of needing to be liked, self doubt and the general pain of life are completely relatable. The true irony of this book is the title Liar as the depth of Rob's self revelation rings as nothing but truth. I received an ARC from Penguins First to Read Program.
January 6, 2016
3 - 3.5
A singular, insightful glance inside the author's struggle with addiction and bipolar disorder.
The book is written in the third person, as if the author wrote each dated entry as part of a diary and chose to share it with his audience. The book is divided in chapters, but I'm not even know why (perhaps to give me a sense of accomplishment as I navigated through the anecdotes). The entries are dated but not placed in any chronological order. At first this was distracting, but after a while I realized most of us share our personal stories that way.
I can't imagine this being an easy book to share with the world. The stigma associated with addiction and mental health is real. A bit chaotic, somewhat depressing (and more honest than the title suggests), the book structure seems to reflect the author's own life journey.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange of an honest opinion.
A singular, insightful glance inside the author's struggle with addiction and bipolar disorder.
The book is written in the third person, as if the author wrote each dated entry as part of a diary and chose to share it with his audience. The book is divided in chapters, but I'm not even know why (perhaps to give me a sense of accomplishment as I navigated through the anecdotes). The entries are dated but not placed in any chronological order. At first this was distracting, but after a while I realized most of us share our personal stories that way.
I can't imagine this being an easy book to share with the world. The stigma associated with addiction and mental health is real. A bit chaotic, somewhat depressing (and more honest than the title suggests), the book structure seems to reflect the author's own life journey.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange of an honest opinion.
February 4, 2016
This book releases on Feb. 9th, 2016.
The trouble with a talented writer writing about a real person with pain, hopelessness, despair, bad choices, terrifying experiences, bad people, risky behaviors, and all the rest, is that it is terribly compelling as a story. He makes you live in it. It may be his fractal life, but it is you, the reader, who is the one out of control. As a form of entertainment, it may be the same as cutting yourself to make you feel better, but by golly, you will read it to the last word. There are even times you will wonder about what kind of person you are when you find parts funny, even though you know they really are.
Raw. Absurd. Go ahead and read it. The worst that will happen is that you will wonder how this man ended up with more friends and more life than most, despite the life he lives. If he is a liar, he is, at least, an entertaining liar.
A review copy was provided free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The trouble with a talented writer writing about a real person with pain, hopelessness, despair, bad choices, terrifying experiences, bad people, risky behaviors, and all the rest, is that it is terribly compelling as a story. He makes you live in it. It may be his fractal life, but it is you, the reader, who is the one out of control. As a form of entertainment, it may be the same as cutting yourself to make you feel better, but by golly, you will read it to the last word. There are even times you will wonder about what kind of person you are when you find parts funny, even though you know they really are.
Raw. Absurd. Go ahead and read it. The worst that will happen is that you will wonder how this man ended up with more friends and more life than most, despite the life he lives. If he is a liar, he is, at least, an entertaining liar.
A review copy was provided free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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