66 pages • 2 hours read
Liars: A Novel
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Pages 86-132Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 86-95 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of emotional and physical abuse, illness, and gender discrimination.
The child starts teething, and Jane’s hands and feet tingle, potentially signaling another relapse of her autoimmune disease. Jane has a cold when she leaves for a work trip to Pennsylvania. She meets a woman who gives her a card with a short prayer, and her talk and book signing go well; however, afterward she develops pink eye, and her cough intensifies. Shortly after arriving home, Jane’s autoimmune disease flares, and she is admitted to the hospital. She experiences numbness and paralysis and is treated with an infusion. Jane is released home after five days, where she tends to the child as best she can while John looks “terrible.” Although she feels depressed, she pushes those feelings aside. The nanny loses her car, and John goes to Calgary, leaving a healing Jane alone with her domestic responsibilities. She takes the child to the park, and her hands go numb.
While writing her fifth book, Jane sought John’s advice; subsequently, it was her worst-selling book. He often criticizes Jane’s writing, and she is aware that he does it intentionally. John struggles to run the household while Jane works, leading to a fight. The child treats his teddy bear like a baby, and Jane cleans while trying not to think about John leaving for Calgary again.
John returns and makes a bitter remark about Jane’s editor using her name to secure a better job. He leaves again, and Jane feels grateful that her most significant problem is missing her husband while he is away. While John is away, Jane begins a new role teaching night classes. Later, she and John fight, hitting each other. She talks to Hannah, who suggests that John feels insecure. Jane longs to tell everyone in her life that she is self-isolating because of her failing marriage. John apologizes, and Jane thinks that their relationship will be okay.
Pages 95-103 Summary
Jane passes up the chance to give a lecture for an art opening that John cancels, refusing to explain why. Jane realizes her marriage might be beyond repair but wants to stay with John for the child’s sake. She sets boundaries with John, telling him he must be more respectful. The child tells his teacher that he is most grateful for his mom. Together, John and Jane put the child to bed together, having a good time, but the next day, the child is sick. John almost gives the child four times the recommended dose of anti-inflammatory medication, but the child recognizes that there is too much medicine in the cup.
Jane goes to Calgary to give a lecture, and while she is there, she visits Felix and Victoria and can sense tension in their relationship. When Jane returns home, she finds the house a mess and must clean it while on the phone. Jane and John attend a film screening then a dinner with the filmmaker. Jane confides in her mother how unhappy she is.
Initially, Jane rejects John’s idea to go to a museum, knowing it will negatively impact the child. John whines, and they go to the museum; later that night, the child has a meltdown. Jane has a dream about legless women dancing. Polyglot closes its office in Los Angeles and opens one in San Francisco, prompting another move.
Now that the child is older, Jane feels more comfortable taking work trips. She takes a short trip to Texas where she flirts with an assistant professor. When she returns, she, John, and the child move to San Francisco. The day after they move, John declares that the “hard part” of moving is over, but Jane knows that the hard part—getting reestablished in a new city, which will predominately be her responsibility—is just beginning. Jane takes the child to tour schools, and she breaks her foot.
Pages 103-113 Summary
The child does not like going to school because kids look at him, and Jane makes up a story about Little Bear making friends to help the child feel better. The child is happily playing when Jane picks him up from school, but he has five tantrums the next morning, then another after school. Jane holds and rocks the child, and he lies down with the cat for a little while before asking for popcorn. Later, when the child is sick and must stay home from school, Jane struggles to feel productive. John takes another trip, and Jane meets with a friend and explains that she thinks her marriage is failing.
John often tells Jane what to do; he tells her she should not take a new teaching position and criticizes how Jane cuts up the child’s dinner. Jane realizes that she doesn’t care what John does, as long as it doesn’t negatively impact the child. She enjoys spending time with the child, describing their small moments together, including the child pretending to be the letter “A.” The next day, Jane must complete several tasks for John, and she feels worthless for only making $20,000 a year. She realizes she can’t conceive of her happiness independent from the needs of her family, but she actively chooses to keep living this way.
The child breaks his toy, and to help him feel better, Jane tells him a story about their cat. When the story makes him cry, Jane explains that one of the “big feelings” the child is having is love. Jane decides she wants more intimacy with John. When she puts the child to bed, she notices that John left the child’s urine-soaked blankets on the bed all day. The child experiences a speech regression, and John announces that Polyglot is failing.
Pages 113-124 Summary
John suffers while shutting down Polyglot, and he tells Jane to prepare to move again as he begins searching for work. He gets fired from Polyglot before the company officially closes. Victoria and Felix visit and bring their dog. Jane teaches the child to perform his bedtime routine himself. Jane synopsizes a series of events: “We moved from L.A. to the Bay for John’s job. Nine months later he was fired. Four months after that, we went broke” (115). John gets a corporate job in Los Angeles, and the child gets sick.
Jane thinks about all the wives who came before her that have since been forgotten. She also reflects on the intimacy of the mother-child bond. Jane decides she wants to be “a calm, capable mother” (117), so she thinks of herself that way and becomes that way. Jane’s preoccupation with motherhood leaves her little time for herself, impacting her sense of identity and career, and John taunts her for not having a more established career. The family’s cat gets sick; they take her to the vet and learn she has cancer. Jane worries more about the child’s feelings than her own grief, though she loves the cat deeply.
The family moves back to Los Angeles, and Jane considers that it’s rude to tell people they will survive difficult circumstances. After the move, Jane is clumsy and distracted. She meets the neighbor, who takes care of his elderly father. He asks Jane why she is still with John, given how often he hears them fighting. John and Jane have a loud fight, then he leaves for Calgary. Jane writes down another synopsis of her life with John, and she feels bad for seeming complicit in his mistreatment of her.
Pages 124-132 Summary
John arranges to have an art show in Santa Cruz, but he fails to effectively manage the details of the event. A friend tells Jane she needs to write more, and Jane must fetch the child from school. John takes a five-day work trip, leaving his car at the end of the driveway but taking the key. He sends the key to Jane. The cat’s health wavers, and Jane fantasizes about financial stability.
Jane has an abnormal Pap smear and is told to expect bad news. Their landlord dies, and the landlord’s daughter decides to sell Jane and John’s home, so they must move again. Jane asks Hannah to talk to John to help convince him to stay in the area. She and John fight about money, with John blaming Jane for not working full-time, ignoring that Jane hasn’t had steady employment because she has been following him through several moves. Jane begins thinking about and talking to Hannah about divorcing John. She struggles to write a book review while John is in Calgary, and both she and the child get frustrated with each other.
Pages 86-132 Analysis
Jane’s denial of her dissatisfaction remains central to her narrative, illustrating the insidious nature of Deception in Marriage. While John actively deceives Jane—hiding an affair and convincing her to ignore the glaring inequalities in their relationship—Jane unconsciously deceives herself into believing his version of the narrative about their marriage. Her insistence that she is happily married, despite clear evidence to the contrary, demonstrates how deeply she relies on self-deception to maintain the façade of stability. She dismisses her unhappiness with statements like, “In other countries, children were being mutilated by bombs. I had no problems” (94). This negative self-talk trivializes her emotional struggles, illustrating how societal expectations compel women to endure toxic situation by minimizing their own pain. The irony in this perspective becomes especially poignant when the child, whom Jane stays with John to protect, begins to exhibit signs of trauma, such as speech and potty-training regressions. This disconnect between intention and outcome underscores the devastating toll of Jane’s sacrifices.
Manguso uses humor to cut through these moments of pain, offering brief relief while exposing deeper truths. For example, Jane observes, “Feeling that he’d done something wrong really threatened his sense of entitlement” (108), using sarcasm to point toward a significant flaw in John’s character. This humor also highlights the power imbalance in their marriage, as John’s entitlement leads to emotional abuse. His criticisms of Jane’s writing—“From that point forward, every time I wrote anything, I worried that John would use it to cut me down” (92)—reveal his intentional efforts to undermine her confidence. Similarly, his taunts about her financial contributions—“John taunted me in front of the child for not earning enough money […] he was actively contemptuous of me” (118)—exemplify how societal norms that prioritize economic productivity enable such abuse.
This disparity between paid and unpaid labor emerges as a critical concept in this section. Jane calculates that she earned $20,000 in a year, enough to cover childcare, while John earned eight times that amount. Even though her contributions to the household go far beyond this monetary contribution, Jane feels “worthless, useless, miserable, good-for-nothing” (109), reflecting how capitalism undervalues the unpaid labor women are often expected to perform. Jane’s domestic and emotional labor—caring for the child, managing the household, and supporting John—goes unacknowledged, further eroding her sense of self-worth. This systemic devaluation of caregiving work exacerbates the power imbalance in their marriage, trapping Jane in a cycle of invisibility and dependence.
Motherhood offers Jane moments of purpose and clarity, even as it demands that she put the child’s needs ahead of her own, and she continues to recognize Motherhood as a Rewarding Form of Sacrifice. The theme of the distinction between motherhood and wifehood becomes increasingly prominent as Jane shifts her focus toward raising a more self-sufficient and emotionally aware child. When she tells her son, “You have the power to do this yourself. You are powerful” (114), she models a rejection of the dependency that defines her relationship with John. This act of teaching the child to care for himself contrasts with John’s continued reliance on Jane to manage their lives, further emphasizing the imbalance in their marriage. Manguso employs literary devices to convey Jane’s transformation as a mother. Jane describes herself as having “turned from a person into the sky. I was what the child looked up at when he was afraid. He looked up, saw nothing to fear, continued on his way” (118). This metaphor portrays Jane’s evolution into a stabilizing, omnipresent figure for her child, highlighting the sacrifices she makes to ensure his emotional well-being. Her reflection—”I had already oriented myself toward the child and evolved into a mother who helps a little boy through the death of his kitty” (120)—shows how her identity has become deeply entwined with her role as a caregiver.
The increased mentions of Calgary and Hannah provide additional layers to the narrative. Calgary looms as a symbol of John’s physical and emotional distance, foreshadowing his affair with Victoria. Meanwhile, Hannah represents the importance of friendship as a counterbalance to Jane’s isolation. Hannah’s insights, such as her suggestion that John’s insecurity stems from Jane’s career success, offer Jane a perspective that challenges her self-blame. However, Jane’s longing to tell her friends, “I’m isolating myself because it’s exhausting to pretend my marriage is fine” (94), reflects how societal pressure to maintain appearances keeps her trapped. Manguso’s satirical irony underscores the systemic barriers Jane faces. Jane’s reflection—“Qualified women aren’t likable; likable women aren’t qualified” (127)—captures the double bind women often navigate in professional and personal spheres. This observation critiques the societal expectation for women to excel without threatening the status quo, a dynamic that mirrors Jane’s struggles to balance her ambitions with her roles as wife and mother.
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