E. Lockhart's (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks) latest novel will blow readers away. Spectacular plotting and character delineation build to an ending that will hit readers like a tidal wave.
Every word matters. "It is true I suffer migraines since my accident," says nearly 18-year-old narrator Cadence Sinclair Eastman. "It is true I do not suffer fools. I like a twist of meaning. You see? Suffer migraines. Do not suffer fools. The word means almost the same as it did in the previous sentence. But not quite."
Lockhart's book examines where one has come from, who one wishes to be, and where these two collide. As Granddad explains, "We Sinclairs are a grand, old family.... Our traditions and values form the bedrock on which future generations stand." Granddad went to Harvard, inherited wealth and multiplied it. He married Tipper and had three beautiful blonde daughters. His "precious" Cadence is the first grandchild.
As the novel opens, Cadence recalls the June of what she calls "summer fifteen," when her father drove away in the Mercedes "to some woman he loved more than us." She describes the emotional impact in stark metaphor: "Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest.... The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed." Her mother snapped, "Be normal, now, she said. Right now, she said." Cadence's perfect life is in ruins. Her mother trashes jewelry, books, tosses out the furniture, erases all trace of her father.
Cadence takes refuge on Granddad's island off the coast of Massachusetts, with her cousins Mirren and Johnny and his best friend, Gat. They are the Liars of the title. Gat sees the disparity between rich and poor, the injustice in the world. That summer, the summer Cadence is 15, she and Gat fall in love. Where she is pale and blonde and accepting, Gat is dark and exotic and questioning. Granddad does not approve. No one speaks of Granny Tipper, who died of heart failure eight months before. "Silence is a protective coating over pain," Cadence's mother tells her. That summer, Cadence has an accident. Something terrible has happened, but she cannot remember what.
Lockhart weaves in Shakespeare plots and fairy tales, Cadence's constructions to puzzle out what occurred and why she has no memory of it: Granddad Sinclair as Lear; Beauty sees the glory in the Beast, but her father "sees a jungle animal." Did the overwhelming loss of her father and Granny Tipper and her forbidden love for Gat lead to Cadence's accident and amnesia?
This is a love story as much as it is a psychological mystery. The true genius of Lockhart's plotting comes with the second reading, when we see that the clues were there, just below the surface of the placid island waters. The Liars must face the truth in order to heal. Astonishing. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: On her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts, narrator Candace Sinclair Eastman tries to piece together the cause of an accident that has left her with no memory of it.