66 pages • 2 hours read
Liars: A Novel
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Pages 132-180Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 132-143 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of suicidal ideation, emotional and physical abuse, sexual content, illness, mental illness, substance use, animal death, and gender discrimination.
The child falls at school and must go to the hospital. Jane can’t contact John; he is at a movie and has his phone off. She feels thankful for her life on Christmas Eve. Wildfires leave the area smokey, leading schools to close. John complains that he doesn’t like when Jane takes trips, although she travels only once a semester while he goes to Calgary twice a month. John discusses moving to Palo Alto, and Jane threatens to leave him and take the child. Jane worries she will never have time for herself. She has lunch with a friend who enjoys joint custody with her ex.
The cat’s health declines, and the vet says death is likely “imminent.” Jane researches euthanasia. John takes the cat to the hospital in the middle of the night, then brings her home despite having talked with Jane earlier about moving ahead with the euthanasia. Jane continues to nurse the ailing cat and schedules a euthanasia, which will take place on Jane’s birthday. Jane is grief-stricken at the loss of her cat, and she manages all the details, including sending a thank you note to the cat’s oncologist and canceling the cat’s appointments and microchip account.
John goes to Calgary for three days. While he is away, Jane sleeps well and takes the child out on fun excursions. Felix visits and offers for him and Victoria to help with the child so Jane can travel for work. Jane wonders if she is a good enough mother, then she learns she has cervical cancer. Hannah and Eben offer to help Jane manage things, and Jane’s mother doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t tell many people about her cancer, and she thinks of ways to explain her upcoming surgery to the child.
Pages 143-155 Summary
Eben learns that his wife has been cheating on him around the time Jane has cancer surgery. John and Jane get along while she is healing from surgery. The child gets sick and must go to the ER, and Jane takes two tranquilizers to manage her anxiety. Jane, John, and the child move into their new house. John nags Jane for doing too much, while he sits and watches. He establishes a garden, criticizes Jane for her anger and poor mental health, and demeans her in front of the child. Jane undergoes an uncomfortable medical procedure, then John goes to Calgary.
Jane arranges for a handyman to come and fix several issues in their new home, and the child has tantrums in school. Jane wonders if John is watching porn instead of sleeping with her, though he does sleep with her the day before her hysterectomy. She learns the procedure was successful, so she won’t need chemotherapy. John accidentally melts seltzer bottles in the dishwasher, which enrages Jane, and he gives her a comb and hair ties for her birthday—“the same kind [he’d] given me for Christmas” (150).
Jane’s friend Marni learns her husband is cheating, and Jane feels grateful that her most significant marital problem is a lack of intimacy. Marni stays with Jane and John, and John acts as if he is the one doing Marni a favor. John and Jane catch colds. While John stays in bed, Jane continues to run the household and takes their new kitten to the vet. John continues to criticize Jane for her anger, and Jane gets more tranquilizers from her psychiatrist. Victoria visits for dinner. Jane talks to John about needing more physical intimacy, and he refuses and mocks her.
Marni and Eben share details of their spouses’ infidelity, which bothers Jane. She and John go out for dinner and a drive on their tenth anniversary. John refuses to alter his driving when Jane gets carsick, instead insisting Jane should grow out of her carsickness. They fight, and John says he can’t sleep with Jane if she is angry. Jane wants a divorce but is still hesitant. She asks John to go to couples counseling, and his response makes her cry.
Pages 155-165 Summary
John is upset when Jane says in front of the child that it seems like he hates her. Jane’s father is surprised when she talks about taking on a full-time administrative job; while Jane didn’t see it at the time, she now realizes that John wanted to destroy her writing career—“My father knew, but I didn’t know yet, that John’s fondest wish was that I’d do exactly that” (156).
John reminds Jane that Victoria is coming to stay, and he tells her that they can’t sleep together while Victoria and her son are staying there. Jane reflects on how John once said that, if Jane ever cheated, he wouldn’t want to know. John gets a parking ticket—his tenth that year—and loses his parking sticker. Jane and John start sleeping together more, and Jane thinks they will reach her goal of sleeping together twelve times that year. John forgets the drycleaning, assures it is not his fault, then forces Jane to apologize when she remarks that “Nothing ever is” his fault (158). He then reads and criticizes the finished draft of Jane’s new book, making Jane feel like a failure. She sends the book to her agent despite John’s criticism and tends to her sick child. The child turns eight, first celebrating by folding a new origami crane, then Jane hears that her book has sold.
Because John ignores emails from another child’s parent, the family is an hour and a half late to a birthday party. John does not apologize. John mocks Jane for wanting to lose weight, then mocks her for eating cookies, then mocks her for feeling hurt by John. Jane feels she can still fix her marriage; meanwhile, John asserts that she is mentally unwell.
During the pandemic, Jane supplements the child’s online schoolwork, hoping to find time to write. Being with the child made the pandemic lockdown easier for Jane. Instead of sleeping with Jane, John stays up late talking to Victoria, and Jane confronts him about having an emotional affair. Jane decides to stop feeling hurt when John hurts her, such as when he cancels plans with Jane to play online games with Victoria.
Pages 165-180 Summary
Jane gets Covid and must quarantine herself from the child. She is severely ill, but still works during the day. When she can leave her quarantine, she finds the house in disarray. The child asks about Jane’s work, and they talk about books together. John brings up moving again, and when Jane is upset, he says he has little hope for their marriage. Jane realizes John doesn’t hold her in bed anymore. She buys him an 11th anniversary present, and that night he refuses to hold her in bed, blaming his shoulder.
The family takes a trip to the beach, and the child wanders off, scaring Jane. They find the child, and Jane learns that John told the child to meet them at the wrong location. The family takes a vacation during which Jane handles most of the responsibilities while John criticizes her and works remotely with Victoria. Jane reflects that she didn’t want to marry when she was younger, knowing that it would make her life harder. She changed her mind and wanted commitment after a decade of therapy, but after more than a decade of marriage, she has realized that committed relationships are both a gift and a trap. She starts masturbating more instead of relying on John for her sexual needs.
Jane donates the child’s old toys, and the child takes karate lessons. When the karate teacher comes to their home for a hands-on training session, the child works so hard that he vomits. John holds Jane with his hand rather than his injured arm in bed in an attempt to be more “tender.” Jane takes over managing the child’s Minecraft session, which John was supposed to handle, and she makes a bug-out-bag for the family. Victoria leaves Felix and their children and moves closer to Jane and John. Jane takes her prescription tranquilizers frequently, and she develops a vaginal infection after sleeping with John.
John compliments some of Jane’s writing, which surprises her. Then he asks her to pause her show and announces that he wants a divorce. Jane proposes counseling and gets upset, and John asks if he should call an ambulance. John’s suggestion to call emergency services confuses Jane—”What new derangement was this?” (178). John repeatedly denies being involved with Victoria, and Jane takes several tranquilizers to calm herself. She gets the idea that John wants her to attempt suicide, which changes Jane’s mood. She stops crying, and John starts smiling, “So I knew he felt threatened” (179). Then she notices that John has an erection, and she stops caring about him entirely.
Pages 132-180 Analysis
In this section, Jane’s marriage reaches its breaking point. Her growing awareness of John’s flaws, combined with subtle changes in her relationship with her child, highlights the evolving dynamics of her roles as wife and mother. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, Manguso creates a portrait of a toxic modern marriage, drawing attention to the cumulative effects of abuse, manipulation, and societal expectations.
Foreshadowing continues to play a significant role in this section, gradually building toward Jane’s realization that John is involved with Victoria. John’s frequent trips to Calgary, his growing emotional distance, and his dismissive attitude toward intimacy and toward Jane’s feelings and needs are warning signs that Jane struggles to acknowledge. The foreshadowing also includes interactions with Felix and Victoria, whose separation mirrors the fractures in Jane and John’s marriage. By presenting these signs so clearly to the reader, Manguso emphasizes the role of Deception in Marriage: Jane denies what she knows, and cognitive biases such as the sunk-cost fallacy—the belief that she must recoup what she has already invested in the marriage—keep her tied to a relationship that offers her nothing in return.
Jane’s internal dialogue and self-deception remain central to the narrative. Her acknowledgement of her new narrative—“And that was my new story” (163)—reveals how she continually rewrites her reality to maintain hope. The text avoids blaming Jane, instead showing how small acts of manipulation and emotional neglect accumulate over time, eroding her ability to see the truth. For instance, after John dismisses her request for intimacy, he undermines her feelings by making her humiliation seem “unreasonable, irrelevant, and wrong” (153). This psychological manipulation, compounded by years of mistreatment, keeps Jane doubting herself even as the abuse escalates.
John’s emotional abuse becomes increasingly explicit, reflecting his growing contempt for Jane. His comments about her being “angrier and crazier” (146) echo his earlier descriptions of Naomi, suggesting a pattern in how he labels women to deflect responsibility for his actions. His contempt is evident in his actions as well as his words. For instance, when Jane cleans the house while John and the child are at the park, the child returns to exclaim, “Someone cleaned everything!” (152). This moment underscores John’s failure to acknowledge Jane’s labor, subtly influencing the child to overlook her contributions as well. The child’s absorption of these dynamics is a recurring concern, as Jane observes: “John rolled his eyes to make sure the child knew his mother’s word was nothing” (155). Such moments highlight how children internalize cultural norms through the examples set by their parents, perpetuating cycles of inequality.
Despite the abuse, the narrative alternates between moments of hope and despair, illustrating the instability of Jane and John’s relationship. John’s occasional compliments, such as calling Jane’s writing “fantastic,” momentarily give her hope, but these instances are often followed by betrayal or cruelty. His compliment, immediately preceding his request for a divorce, underscores the intentionality of his actions. The stark dissonance between the two reveals how John uses brief moments of kindness to maintain control over Jane, keeping her emotionally tethered. Jane’s disillusionment reaches its peak when she notices John’s erection. This unsetting detail suggests that John derives pleasure from hurting Jane, cementing her realization of his intentional cruelty.
The backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic adds a layer of realism to the narrative, grounding Jane’s struggles in a recognizable context. Her reflections on how the pandemic magnified her responsibilities—“All through Covid, I hadn’t gone more than a day without working at least a little. I hadn’t gone a single weekend without cleaning the entire house” (170)—highlight the disproportionate burden placed on women in domestic spaces. These details convey the unique pressures of modern life while emphasizing Jane’s resilience.
Jane’s relationship with her child remains a source of both solace and growth. The advice she gives the child—“Sometimes your body needs to cry. It’s OK if you don’t know why” (168)—shows her efforts to teach emotional intelligence and self-regulation. The child’s emotional growth helps Jane to recognize Motherhood as a Rewarding Form of Sacrifice: Unlike John, the child grows and changes as a result of his mother’s efforts, meaning that her emotional labor has a real impact in shaping the child’s future. Moments like this one demonstrate Jane’s determination to raise her son with values that counter the toxic dynamics she experiences with John.
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