Liar / Justine Larbalestier

This page contains spoilers!

If you don’t want to read any spoilers about this avert your eyes and go back to page 1.

Normally I include the Library of Congress subject headings for a book in these blog entries. (I’m a geek that way.) However, in this case I cut out one of them because it’s a major spoiler for the book:

Subject: Werewolves — Fiction

At the start of the second section, Micah reveals her family illness. Normally, I pick up on these things pretty quickly. This time I didn’t. That’s because I am a moron. Larbalestier leaves lots of clues, such as the opening line of the book:

I was born with a light covering of fur.

Hmm… Family illness is a term that is often used in werewolf stories. But I kept on thinking she meant the lying. This despite the fact that Micah claims her dad is a big liar like she is, but also that he didn’t have the family illness. How dumb am I?

Lots of the commentary about this book notes how those readers really didn’t like this reveal. It’s too preposterous! Despite being duped, I have to disagree with that assessment. If the book were promoted as a fantasy, that would be fine. It’s that people think of the book as non-fantastical that makes people have this reaction. Or they aren’t giving enough weight to the idea that Micah Wilkins is a big fat liar! She’s already claimed she’s a boy, and then that’s she’s a hermaphrodite. Both of which she reveals to be false. So why not go big?

At the point that the werewolf revelation happens, Micah hasn’t yet revealed herself to be an unreliable narrator. The reader should suspect this, but it’s not made explicit. In part 3, Micah starts listing off the lies she’s told the reader, and then telling the truth about those lies. Except that one of the falsehoods is something she’s already corrected herself on once. The effect of this is to make it so that the reader shouldn’t trust anything Micah writes.

So why would the werewolf story be true and not the other ones?

The short answer for me is: I don’t know. Larbalestier has written that there are two ways she meant for people to take the ending. I assume she means that one is that Micah is a werewolf like she claims. The other is that she lied about that too and is one really messed up girl. I’m not sure I care to actually make a choice. If I lean any direction it’s toward the liar verdict because that’s the solution that satisfies Occam’s razor best.

I wonder if this ambiguity means the book is really slipstream. I have to think about that.

The werewolf thing could be taken as a metaphor for other things too. One that came to mind is that Micah is uncomfortable with being a girl. She turns into a werewolf only when she gets her period, and takes birth control to suppress menstruation completely. I was thinking I was pretty clever figuring this out and then just a few pages later Micah’s teacher Yayeko Shoji makes exactly the same connection. I guess I’m not really that clever.

Werewolf-ism could also be a manifestation of Micah’s inability to connect with anyone else. I have a monster inside me that I can’t reveal to anyone. This turns into a cycle of rejection and self-loathing with external feedback from other people who reject her. Perhaps if she’s a psych case (as adolescence generally is), she would easily turn her monstrous thoughts into being a werewolf.

One last bit of commentary on the werewolf thing: it could also be a reflection of Micah’s parents’ mistrust. They are overprotective. She can’t date. She has to take birth control every day. Perhaps she really did accidentally kill her little brother Jordan. Put that together and I might convince myself that I have a real monster inside me too.

I don’t have a problem with suspension of disbelief for fantasy novels. But a liar with a messed up family life really does make me lean toward the more prosaic explanation. Then again, maybe Micah’s family life is a lie too. There’s no solid ground to stand on anywhere.

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