The best books on the truth and lies of ordinary lives

This book remains one of the most evocative texts for me about where truth lies in a story. But this beautifully crafted version of the events that ended Joe Cinque’s life is no fiction. My heart breaks every time I read it, my rage at the callousness of his murderer and deep-seated sadness at the carelessness of his friends bubbles anew with each foray into the pages. Garner’s writing takes me to the scene, to the court, and into the very core of his family’s grief. Powerful. 

Vertigo is not so much about the lies people tell, more the reasons why they can’t face the truth. The story unfolds as the reader is immersed in the physical world of the characters. The environment frames the sense of loss and isolation they experience and is described in detail. You can almost hear and smell the land around them. Lohrey also evokes the power of the Australian bushfire season and its power to destroy everything we build. Having lived through the New Year’s Eve fire in NSW in 2019/20 I feel every raw nerve ignite through her description. 

This classic American novel was the first real book I read at school. I was 16 and felt a little connected to Holden Caulfield’s sense of disillusionment and self-alienation. I hadn’t been expelled like Holden, nor was I burdened with the grief of loss or the silence he had to endure after the death of his brother, but I was definitely experiencing some sense of apprehension and insecurity. I really wanted a red hunting hat…still do. Holden was the quintessential liar; he lied and obfuscated to avoid the inevitability of suffering, personal responsibility, and the wild ride of adolescence. My first visit to New York included what was left of Holden’s haunts; the Natural History Museum, the Central Park duck pond, and West 57th. 

I love Nordic crime and Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason writes a good game. His Detective Erlendur is a complex man who has little luck in his relationships with the living; but when it comes to solving murder and mystery, he is like a dog with a bone. Like all his Reykjavik Murder Mysteries there are several strands interwoven to create a multi-layered puzzle. At the heart of the series, and this fifth book, is the one mystery that he can’t, yet most desperately wants to solve, his brother’s disappearance in a snowstorm when they were boys. Everyone lies, particularly the guilty.

Brian McGilloway’s novel is told in the first person from the perspective of a grieving mother who tries to pick through the lies and secrets to uncover what happened to her only child. On her journey she uncovers the brutal truth; everybody lies. The book takes a realistic look at Dora Condron’s emotional descent into a bleak world where she comes to believe that no one will tell the truth. I like most of all that it is crime novel, a mystery, and a family drama that is told from the single perspective. The mother’s introspection about her failings as a parent really hits home when we consider what our own last words might have been to a loved one who walks out the door and never walks back in.