Liam Wilson is a glorified peon in a huge English publishing firm with an intelligent girlfriend Sarah and a drug-fuelled life spent schmoozing with literary heavyweights and sifting through an endless stream of words. But Liam’s hedonistic ways soon catch up with him, as he partakes in a seemingly innocuous betrayal of Sarah and plays an unwitting role in the death of a significant novelist. His life unravels quickly, hurtling him west to Buenos Aires where he languishes in a decrepit hostel learning how he can reclaim the love of his life, his job and his life.
Luke Brown has constructed an exceedingly funny and enchanting page-turner in his debut novel My Biggest Lie, which assumes an autobiographical slant when you discover Brown is an editor-turned-writer – though his protagonist Liam says ‘there are few things more excruciating than an editor who writes’ – and a north Englishman who comes to find a home in the frenzied underbelly of London.
Throughout, Brown expertly conjures colourful characters with a veracity that anchors the meandering storyline and hazy vignettes. The Johnny Depp-lookalike Arturo and the effortlessly beautiful Lizzie – the couple that Liam befriends in Buenos Aires – are worthy yet flawed sidekicks in his quest for an epiphany while his former boss James Cockburn is perfectly encapsulated in a single line: ‘Cockburn was forty-three and looked like a Top Gear presenter: like a mid-life crisis.’
As reductive as labels such as ‘lad lit’ are, Brown’s novel is reminiscent of the self-deprecating and quick-witted, sardonic writing of British authors Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby who shot to fame with novels that took a mirror to the quintessential English middle-class male psyche. My Biggest Lie is also not dissimilar to A.M. Homes’ bizarre yet edifying black comedic novel May We Be Forgiven – winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2013 – as she details a man’s haphazard journey towards redemption after he cheats on his wife with his sister-in-law. Both novels occasionally tread the fine line between down-to-earth reality and otherworldly zaniness, while infidelity – or the thought of infidelity in Liam’s case – serves as the catalyst for episodic adventures.
Ultimately, My Biggest Lie is a book written by a writer for writers. Teeming with references to literary luminaries Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar and Vladimir Nabokov as well as cutting allusions to anyone who has ever read anything Liam deems inferior – ‘it was genuinely possible that I was going to read a whole novel by Paulo Coelho’ – Brown assumes his readers possess an innate knowledge of historical traditions and literary pioneers. Liam’s prose is emblematic of this – both hyperbolic and poetic. ‘My heart was blackened, blasphemous; I thought in the language of a Cormac McCarthy novel.’
That aside, the novel is also a scathing reflection of the cutthroat publishing industry and highlights the incongruous relationships publishers and writers often share. As Liam says in an entertaining excerpt: ‘Writers, they were the worst, the most awful, we pitied them but loathed them more; because if it wasn’t for them, the job really would be pleasure.’ In amongst Brown’s mordant observations however are lucid gems on love, life and relationships. Liam’s relationship with his largely absent father is a surprisingly tender depiction of a son coming to terms with his father’s neglect because after all, ‘forgiveness, in its first stages, is more passive than active.’ Liam’s displacement, as he seeks in the throes of Buenos Aires’ cacophony the home and friends he never had, is both ironic and heartfelt.
Although there is plenty of comedy fodder throughout, Brown has successfully put together an insightful debut – awash with musings on life and love and seamlessly delivered through the eyes of a self-aware tragic hero.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
My Biggest Lie
By Luke Brown
Softcover
RRP: $27.99
275 pages
ISBN: 9781782110378
Allen & Unwin
