Why Men Lie

From the bestselling author of The Bishop’s Man, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, a brilliant, deeply wise and challenging new novel.

Why do men lie? Effie MacAskill Gillis, a self-sufficient woman of her time, is confident she knows. She learned the hard way—from a war-damaged father and a troubled brother who became a priest, through failed marriages and doomed relationships with weak and needy men. Men lie to satisfy the needs they never can articulate: for sex, for love and reassurance.

Now at middle age, she feels immunized against the damage men can do and enjoys a hard-won independence. But then a chance encounter with a man on a subway platform changes everything—an old friend looks like he, like her, has evolved into an assured and confident maturity. That he seems to have outgrown the need for telling lies is irresistible, and Effie gambles her emotional resources as she never has before. Only to learn that men must lie, and that the consequences of an unexpected lie can be disastrous.