Luke Brown

It’s not a lie if it’s a good story

My Biggest Lie: A Novel by Luke Brown (Cannongate, $17.84).

Liam, a British book editor, is at the bottom: dumped by his girlfriend, about to be fired for providing the drugs a famous author overdosed on and thereby responsible for his biggest client’s death. What’s a guy to do when his life implodes?

Like any good drunken junkie, he heads off on a binge to Buenos Aires. He’s joined there by his boss, James, and Arturo, a true bon vivant. Liam and James are supposedly looking for new literary talent, but the “bad boys abroad” adventure—which has a goodly amount of humor threaded throughout—eventually leads Liam to understand that the letter he’s writing is really a novel.

And it’s a pretty damn good novel.

Liam discovers just how much bloody work it takes—as well as invention and skill—to tell the truth; only by using every artifice available to him is he able to write honestly. It’s a paradox, but it’s the paradox upon which art is built.

Reviewed at Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com… (mere)