The Lie

There are authors whose novels feel more like math equations than living, breathing organisms. To give you an idea of the type of writer I’m talking about, consider Chuck Palahniuk’s formula: Disillusioned Sarcastic Protagonist + Outlandish Premise + “Shocking” Event – Any Emotional Resonance = Something You Read to Look Edgy in High School. See? After reading Chad Kultgen’s 2007 debut, The Average American Male, I fully expected him to become a mathematical writer, simply plugging in the unvaried variables to create a rehash of his first, best novel. You can imagine my surprise when his latest novel, The Lie, turned into something much more than I thought it could ever be.

The Lie is essentially three people looking back at their four year relationship during university and realizing the precise moments of their mistakes, moments of retrospective clarity, and the moment they crossed the point of no return and kissed their sense of morality goodbye. Despite all three characters being extreme stereotypes of the nice guy (Kyle), the jaded misogynist (Brett), and the gold-digging slutty sorority sister (Heather), Kultgen manages to combine all three (mostly) one-dimensional personas to create a story that is at once enthralling, meaningful and unsettling. The reader is made aware at the onset and throughout the novel that everything the characters do will ultimately lead them to a bitter resolution. It is this sense of futility that lends itself to the dark tone of the novel and instils a sense of hopelessness in the reader. Think back to your last relationship and pinpoint the moment you should have smothered your ex with a pillow but didn’t, and that is feeling of helplessness and regret The Lie evokes.

Kultgen’s writing is, as usual, very easy and enjoyable to read. His real achievement, however, and where his growth as a writer is unmistakable, is in the voices of the characters. Kyle speaks like a normal person with a hint of endearing idealism that gradually becomes perverted; Brett speaks like a teenage Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), obsessed with demeaning women, or as he unfailingly refers to them as: “cunts”; while Heather speaks like a vapid, single-minded Valley girl, punctuating sentences with the words “like” and “seriously”. Equally impressive is Kultgen’s ability to show the reader the flaws of every character, turning them into their own antagonists as they act against their natures because they are blinded by love or jealousy or the need for revenge.

The lie at the end of the novel is often, though erroneously, considered the lie referred to in the title of the novel. It is clear by the final three pages of the novel that the titular lie is the direct product of the falsehoods accumulated over the course of the novel. In the end, the actual lie is the lives the characters lead; lives consisting solely of desperation, duplicity, and apathy.