The Liar (novel)
First edition cover
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| Author | Stephen Fry |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | William Heinemann |
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Publication date
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September 1991 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 240 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | (first edition, hardback) & (paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 59891543 |
The Liar (published 1991) is the first novel of British writer and actor Stephen Fry. The book relates the life of Adrian Healey, a public school and Oxbridge educated man who excels at lying and, along with other characters, forming an old boy's club, partakes in a makebelieve espionage game solely to avert boredom.
The book follows protagonist Adrian Healey's public school days through to his adult life: Adrian is the "liar" of the title. The early chapters are not in strict chronological order, but are interlaced stories from three periods of the protagonist's life, namely, as a public school pupil, as a Cambridge student and as a "spy".
Initially the espionage portion of the book is written in italics, which stop upon Adrian's graduation. The book features a third-person omniscient narrator. The narrator knows, for example, about David Pearce's annoyance at Dickon Lister's ignorance of the story of Helen of Troy. Starting with chapter four, in keeping with popular spy fiction, the characters refer to each other by code names; in this case, the names used are from the Trojan War.
The book opens as the protagonist, Adrian Healey, and his mentor, Professor Donald Trefusis, are at Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg, where Adrian witnesses the (staged) murder of their contact.
The narrative then shifts to Adrian's time at public school, where he has carefully groomed himself to convey the image of a witty, highly extroverted young gay man; however, despite his image, and, despite regarding sex as his "public pride", he finds himself unable to express his love for the beautiful Hugo Cartwright. Another student, Paul Trotter (known as "Pigs Trotter" [sic]) hangs himself due to his unrequited love for Adrian. Adrian is shown later in the novel to be touchy on the subject of suicide as a result. Prior to Trotter's funeral, Adrian has a sexual encounter with Hugo while pretending to be asleep.
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