A Book of Untruths

Miranda Doyle

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571331697
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

A Book of Untruths is a family story told through a series of lies. Each short chapter features one of these lies and each lie builds to form a picture of a life-Miranda Doyle's life as she struggles to understand her complicated family and her own place within it.

This is a book about love, family and marriage. It is about the fallibility of human beings and the terrible things we do to one another. It is about the ways we get at-or avoid-the truth. And it is about storytelling itself: how we build a sense of ourselves and our place in the world.

A Book of Untruths is a surprising, shocking and invigorating book that edges towards the truth through an engagement with falsehood. It brings questions to its readers; not answers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Lie 1: I didn’t do it
• Lie 2: I am lying
• Lie 3: It’s an ulcer
• Lie 4: You’ve beated me to it
• Lie 5: I’m number three
• Lie 6: I looked it up on Google
• Lie 7: Memoir is non-fiction
• Lie 8: Happy families
• Lie 9: It’s people crying that puts Dad in a bad mood
• Lie 10: He married well
• Lie 11: We’ve posted you a present
• Lie 12: We don’t have favourites
• Lie 13: I’m the most hard-done-by
• Lie 14: I’m your only girl
• Lie 15: One day I’ll run off and join the circus
• Lie 16: Ma’s gone to get the messages
• Lie 17: I’ve lost my mother
• Lie 18: The man will come with big scissors and cut off your thumb
• Lie 19: The Da was taken
• Lie 20: I will not cry
• Lie 21: I didn’t peek at Barney
• Lie 22: All he needs is a firm hand
• Lie 23: Being good makes things better
• Lie 24: One day you’ll move into the Big House
• Lie 25: They’re pestering me to have another baby
• Lie 26: I am your father
• Lie 27: The Saudis are all bloody incompetent
• Lie 28: I’m leaving you
• Lie 29: We’re staying together for the children
• Lie 30: I don’t remember
• Lie 31: I forgot
• Lie 32: I’m Selina
• Lie 33: School is really nice
• Lie 34: There will be no morning run
• Lie 35: That woman is ill-disciplined
• Lie 36: I have never enjoyed taking a poo
• Lie 37: I’m going home
• Lie 38: I couldn’t get him to change his mind
• Lie 39: I hate Dinah
• Lie 40: There’s nothing I can do
• Lie 41: One day I’ll report him
• Lie 42: That was entirely inappropriate
• Lie 43: I’m going to kill myself
• Lie 44: It won’t happen to my child
• Lie 45: I am frigid
• Lie 46: Jesus knows best
• Lie 47: This is the toughest letter I’ve ever had to write
• Lie 48: I’ll take her home
• Lie 49: I deserved it
• Lie 50: Will you go out with me?
• Lie 51: Nemo me impune lacessit
• Lie 52: I’m Sylvie
• Lie 53: I want a relationship
• Lie 54: I just wanted to return his pullover
• Lie 55: Honestly it won’t be so bad
• Lie 56: We’re spending quality time together
• Lie 57: Marriage is all I want
• Lie 58: We parent together
• Lie 59: You’ll be fine
• Lie 60: Let me tell you a secret
• Lie 61: We’ll see you for your second course of chemotherapy in a month’s time
• Lie 62: We agreed a story and she carried it off well
• Lie 63: The testes are unremarkable
• Lie 64: I am good
• Lie 65: It was just a joke
• Lie 66: Jesus loves me
• Lie 67: No it wasn’t misgusting
• Lie 68: Stickers are fair
• Lie 69: It’s not easy for me to do this
• Lie 70: Always tell the truth
• Lie 71: I’d just have to kill some people
• Lie 72: With my body I thee worship
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• Sources
• About the Author
• Copyright