“The Liar” by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen – Freedom and Loss in the Truth

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen may have written only three novels so far, but she has already demonstrated an uncanny insight into the human mind not only through her master's degree in psychology, but also her book The Liar.

It tells the story of two women: a teenage girl and an eighty-eight year-old granny, both of them living mystifying lies which spin out of control. No matter how much they might gain, however, lies are seldom permanently sustainable, and they will both pay the price for their indulgences.

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen Introduces her Liars

No matter how honest we would like to consider ourselves, the truth is lying is ingrained profoundly into human nature and has helped many people survive and get through dark times. Even if we do our best never to lie to others, we inevitably end up lying to ourselves one way or another down the line. However, we've accepted these small lies as being a regular part of life, and they generally aren't too problematic... so long as they don't get blown out of proportion, as is the case in Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's The Liar.

The story begins by introducing us to Nofar Shalev, a teenage girl spending her summer working in an ice cream shop and wallowing in boredom. She isn't prettiest nor the most popular, and her best friend recently left her behind to go hang out with some more outgoing kids. On one fateful day, however, a former talent show winner and B-list celebrity Avishai is facing a bit of a personal crisis of his own and hurls a string of insults at Nofar, going as far as following her into an alleyway to insult her some more. Ultimately, Nofar begins to scream and before long the police intervenes, at which point they ask her if Avishai assaulted her... to which she replies “yes”. The lie grows on from there, and only one other person knows the truth, a boy by the name of Lavi Maimon who saw it all happen.

As the lie gains more and more amplitude, Nofar's life seems to be changing for the best, with everyone suddenly wanting to talk to her and ask all the questions in the universe. She also crosses paths with a certain Raymonde Azoulai, an eighty-eight year-old Moroccan Israeli posing as her dead friend Rivka, mostly out of grief and curiosity. As the two liars see their lives acquire meaning and even love through the deceptions they live, the inevitable moment of truth is drawing ever-nearer, and they will have to face the possibility of freedom at the cost of letting go all they have attained.

The Troubles of Deceit

As you might have already guessed, the primary theme of the book revolves around lies and how they affect not only us, but the world and people surrounding us as well. I'm certain the author's master's degree in psychology played a rather big role in allowing her to delve into the psyche of her various characters and expose before us everything swirling about in their inner worlds. While Nofar, Raymonde and Lavi are our primary study subjects, so to speak, we also take the time to see how the situation is impacting Nofar's parents, her sister, as well as Avishai himself, stuck at the centre of it all.

The depth to which we explore how they are all tortured in their own ways by the lies they tell is simply astonishing; we are spared no detail and come to understand these people as nuanced human beings made up of equally good and bad elements. While at first we might be tempted to peg some characters as the heroes and others as the villains, the closer we become acquainted with them the harder it becomes to assign black-and-white labels to everyone. In my opinion, this gives the story a very truthful and honest quality; the author understands reality is often much more complex and uncertain than we give it credit for, and it shows in the story.

The power of lying itself is also something we pay very close attention to as the various consequences of the lies lived by our protagonists become increasingly apparent. While we see the suffering they are causing around them, we also see just how much there is to gain for the liars, and how it can become far too enticing to live as a fraud. There is a definite moral ambiguity which prevails through the entire novel, and I for one am a big fan of this more measured approach, at least when tackling a very real and profound subject such as this one.

The Adventure of Falsehood

While the novel does indeed present an in-depth character study of various people, there is still very much a plot and an adventure to be had here; it is, after all, a novel, and the entertainment factor must be fulfilled. While at first our three main characters do appear somewhat unsavoury for their decisions to lie and cheat through their lives, it didn't take me too long to not only get accustomed to them, but also appreciate the choices they have made. This is the type of story where you don't necessarily need to condemn or condone the actions of the characters... understanding them is more than enough.

As we get further and further along into the story tensions definitely begin to rise, especially as the lies become ever-bigger and take on lives of their own. The deeper we see our characters falling down the sinkhole of deceit, the more we simultaneously fear and hope for them, praying the truth will come to light but also fearing for their fates when it does. The way in which the author developed the evolution of the lies was actually quite believable and really made me wonder just how far this whole thing could really go.

Of course, it wouldn't be a very purposeful story in the end if our characters didn't grow from their experiences and learned nothing about life, let them be teenagers or great-grandparents. The personalities of our three characters undergo slow and sometimes insidious changes the more they delve into the darkness they created. At the same time, they also learn some rather valuable lessons about loneliness, self-acceptance, the nature and purpose of the truth, the destructive power of treachery, and the healing power of love. Though the odyssey is marked by many dark stretches, there is a light of hope for all of them in the end.

The Final Verdict

The Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is an original, fast-paced and psychologically-profound coming-of-age novel, exploring the power and devastation of lies like few, if any of its peers. The author's degree in psychology shines through in her meticulous exploration of the characters' inner universes, and in the end we are left with a whole lot of food for thought. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys this sort of mix between drama and psychology.

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Ayelet Gundar-Goshen Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is an Israeli author who holds a master's degree in psychology from Tel Aviv University. She also worked as a journalist and a news editor during her studies, currently working as a clinical psychologist and a psychology teacher at Tel Aviv University and the Holon Institute of Technology. In 2015 she began her author's career publishing One Night, Markovitch, after which came Waking Lions in 2016 and The Liar in 2017.