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Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 811 ratings · 102 reviews

In this powerful and provocative new memoir, award-winning author Lauren Slater forces readers to redraw the boundary between what we know as fact and what we believe through the creation of our own personal fictions. Mixing memoir with mendacity, Slater examines memories of her youth, when after being diagnosed with a strange illness she developed seizures and neurologica...more

Paperback, 221 pages

Published October 1st 2001 by Penguin Books (first published 2000)

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Jun 28, 2011 Angie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Slater is an excellent writer. I liked the play between fact and fiction and her central theme that one can get to the essence of truth through fiction--especially when a ficticious situation is used as an extended metaphor--as opposed to fact. I enjoyed the first quarter of the book. After that it devolved into narcissism and she belabors the "Am I lying? Am I not? Does it matter?" game that she plays with her reader.

She claims this book is about her relationship with her mom (primarily) and m...more

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Aug 01, 2007 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, own-currently

This was a tricky book to read, because the author/narrator tells you right off the bat that maaaaaaybe she made some things up and maaaaaybe she didn't. Which is, I guess, the truth about most memoirs, but Slater likes to remind you now and then that what you just read might have only happened in her mind. Very tricksy, but not as off-putting as it might sound. This self-consciousness comes off less as po-mo defense tactics than honest representation, because central to the memoir is her seizur...more

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Sep 18, 2012 YingYing rated it 5 of 5 stars

So Mrs. Gately recommended this memoir to me and I have to say, it was amazing and pretty disturbing. It was so skillfully crafted, the way truth and fiction intertwined, and when she told me that it was about a woman who has an affair with an older man at a writing camp, I hadn't expected it to be so twisted and messed up. At the root of the whole thing is her relationship with her mother, her struggle to be the kind of daughter that her mother wanted, her epilepsy and then her redemption with...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Emma Bolden rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I can't believe I'm about to use an MFA word, but here it goes: I was intrigued by the project of this book, an exploration of the always-blurred boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, novel and memoir, re-created memory and created moment. This book does indeed blur the boundaries: episodes and people are entirely created, as are case studies and even an introduction gushing Slater's praises. By the end of the book, I found myself dizzied. There aren't any clues as to what is fiction and wh...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely adored this memoir, but perhaps it's not for everyone. "Lying" is the coming of age story of Lauren Slater and describes her battle with epilepsy and the attendant neurological and psychological symptoms, which include a tendency to exaggerate and lie. Throughout the memoir Slater is up front about the fact that she is blending fact and fiction and is using epilepsy as a metaphor for her mind and the things she is struggling with. So you're never quite clear what is "fact" and what...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Jim Elkins added it

Shelves: american

Slater is controversial for her mixture of truth and fiction: this book is a memoir about her epilepsy, but apparently she did not have epilepsy; in another book, she has written novelized histories of actual psychological experiments. She also presents herself as a liar, saying at first it is a typical symptom of epilepsy, but then, when it emerges that she may not have been an epileptic, the lying becomes a narrative strategy for getting at underlying truths.[return][return]Slater has been rev...more Slater is controversial for her mixture of truth and fiction: this book is a memoir about her epilepsy, but apparently she did not have epilepsy; in another book, she has written novelized histories of actual psychological experiments. She also presents herself as a liar, saying at first it is a typical symptom of epilepsy, but then, when it emerges that she may not have been an epileptic, the lying becomes a narrative strategy for getting at underlying truths.[return][return]Slater has been reviewed and discussed widely, but mainly outside literary circles. I can think of several reasons why she hasn't been reviewed as a serious fiction writer:[return][return]1. Her strategy of "lying" is only controversial if the books are read as nonfiction or as historical scholarship. The blending of fiction and nonfiction "to get to the heart of things" (p. 219; cp. p. 192) is not at all controversial in the domain of writing. What novel isn't about "narrative truth"? What memoir isn't fiction? What history isn't narrated? What story isn't a lie? Slater's book is peppered with undergraduate-style allusions to "postmodernism," Heidegger, and others, as justifications for what she's doing: but the very presence of those gestures shows how far she is from literary practice. There are no references to Barth, Barthelme, Auster, Angela Carter, Muriel Spark, and others who have asked the same questions. (Not to mention Ali Smith: wonder if Slater has seen her speech at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/.... Her writing lacks nuance. It's all black and white, and the emotions and scenes are sensationalist. In one episode, her mother berates a hotel pianist for having "heavy hands," and he asks her to sit down and play in his place. Everyone watches as the narrator's mother sits at the piano with a great flourish, and then realizes she actually can't play anything except rudimentary melodies. Her mother retreats in silence. The next line in the book informs us that Slater had her first epileptic fit that night. There are few scenes in the book that end ambiguously. Slater doesn't evoke or suggest: she dramatizes. The emotional temperature is on high from the first page to the last.[return][return]3. She isn't especially reflective, even about the very ideas that are central to the book. There are a couple of pages in which deeper concerns are voiced, but they pass by quickly. In one scene her doctor is interested to learn that she has become interested in religious issues. She gets annoyed at being compared to Saint Teresa and others, because that would mean that her illness was creating her interest. Is religion itself a symptom? she asks. "Look," the doctor answers, "it's no an either/or thing. Who knows, maybe the disease is God's way of reaching certain people." (p. 201) His thoughts, and her reactions, go to the heart of difficult issues about faith and mental states, and they should be central for Slater, but she has nothing else to say about them. It's almost as if Slater can't keep her mind on the problem. [return][return]I wouldn't mind reading one of her books if it were about just one day, preferably an uneventful day, and her attempts to understand it. It is clear she has been struggling to understand her life, but what counts for her as understanding seems to me more a matter of coming to workable solutions to problems. Often, I think, that is what she has needed. But it's not what readers need, unless of course they are reading her books as self-help manuals -- in which case they will be annoyed, as they often have been, by her so-called "lying."(less)

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Sep 11, 2011 Rebecca H. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bio-autobio

I couldn’t decide for a while whether I loved or hated Lauren Slater’s book Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. Finally, maybe a quarter of the way into it, I decided I loved it and I never changed my mind again. But it’s the kind of book I would think carefully about before I recommended it to anyone, as it strikes me as potentially hateable. It seems that Slater has a talent for stirring up controversy (whether this is what she intends or not, I’m not sure). My first introduction to her was the 2006...more I couldn’t decide for a while whether I loved or hated Lauren Slater’s book Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. Finally, maybe a quarter of the way into it, I decided I loved it and I never changed my mind again. But it’s the kind of book I would think carefully about before I recommended it to anyone, as it strikes me as potentially hateable. It seems that Slater has a talent for stirring up controversy (whether this is what she intends or not, I’m not sure). My first introduction to her was the 2006 edition of The Best American Essays where she was the year’s guest editor. Her introduction to the anthology told the story of how her book Opening Skinner’s Box provoked all kinds of anger from all kinds of people, but especially professional psychologists, of which she is one herself. Apparently, people didn’t like her portrayal of famous psychological experiments, and they disliked it enough to start an email listserve called “Slater-Hater,” which she followed for a while. The openness with which she discussed this episode, which surely was extremely painful, impressed me, and I’ve been intrigued by her ever since.

So, as you can guess from the title, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir is no traditional memoir; instead, it’s a book where she claims to have epilepsy, but also refuses to tell you whether that’s actually true or not. It might just be a metaphor for something else she is trying to communicate about her life, something about mental illness. She describes the experience of epilepsy in great detail, though, telling about her first seizures and the process of figuring out the disease, describing the various forms of treatment she received, and describing the way she would pretend to have seizures or purposely induce seizures for dramatic effect. The most dramatic part of the book comes when she describes surgery to have her corpus callosum severed — the part of the brain that connects the right and left hemispheres. Her doctor believed that this wouldn’t cure her fully but would cut down dramatically on the number and severity of the seizures, which is did — or which she says it did. It also left her with some strange side effects, such as not being able to read with her left eye closed, since the right side of the brain processes language.

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Mar 21, 2011 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed reading Lauren Slater’s Lying because of the range of experimentation within the text. The problem I often have with memoir is the tendency some writers have to be overly poignant and important about their life stories. Personally, I’m not a real fan of that type of memoir. That’s why I really appreciated Slater’s ability to tell her story with a really specific kind of coherence and intelligence. She is able to look at the experiences within her life from a critical as well as...more I really enjoyed reading Lauren Slater’s Lying because of the range of experimentation within the text. The problem I often have with memoir is the tendency some writers have to be overly poignant and important about their life stories. Personally, I’m not a real fan of that type of memoir. That’s why I really appreciated Slater’s ability to tell her story with a really specific kind of coherence and intelligence. She is able to look at the experiences within her life from a critical as well as personal point of view. The fact that she acknowledges that memory and perspective can be flawed and gives multiple suggestions throughout the memoir of what the truth might be gave me a lot of food for thought. These ideas also helped me construct my own first essay for this class in which I too question the idea of what is real and what is not. In other words, Slater’s book gave me an awful lot to think about, as well as things that will contribute to my own work.
I loved the moments of experimentation within the text. For example the one line “I exaggerate” that makes up an entire chapter. Separating specific lines and phrases is a trick often used in more experimental poetry as well, so I am always interested in works that play with structure and format. Other great moments are when Slater introduces academic or scientific language into the text. An example of this would be chapter five, which reads like a scientific study or case study. It made me think about how illness can bring these things which most people never read or think about unless in the field of science or medicine, to the forefront of people’s lives. All of a sudden these complex words, facts, statistics, and ideas manifest themselves in a person’s actual life, in reality. It can be an overwhelming thing. It also reminds me of the two friends I’ve had who became doctors. As they went through their training they both sort of became hypochondriacs, convinced they had a different incurable disease every other week. Of course, they knew it wasn’t true, but one of them admitted to me once that reading and learning about the horrible things that can happen to the human body makes you worried about what is going on in your own at the same time. To get back on track a bit, another style move that I loved was the times in the text when Slater used numbered lists. This happens, for example, in chapter seven which is basically a large list and also a letter from Slater to her editor on marketing the book. It’s one of my favorite chapters in the book. On the one hand, it’s kind of hilarious and fun to think that someone would actually write this kind of quirky random letter to an actual editor at a publishing house. On the other hand, it is kind of scary sometimes, how odd we writers can be, both in professional and personal lives, and how those lives can so often intersect when we’re not paying enough attention and keeping them in line—Or is it when we’re paying too much attention?—in any case, writers are a bunch of odd birds and god knows what editors think about some of us in our stranger moments.
I guess that’s the fun thing about lying in fact and Lying the book...Slater shows us that there is room for experimentation in both as well as truth in both.
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Jun 17, 2011 Mariah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This work of "nonfiction" was an early life autobiography of Slater, who has (or does she?) epilepsy. It was very well written, but she admitted freely throughout the book she lies frequently and she never lets you know how much, if any, of what she writes is true. I see her point in doing this, but it bothered me for some reason. I also have a tendency not to enjoy "woe is me" books people write about themselves (I did not rave about Eat, Pray, Love like most other women in my demographic did f...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Cherylann rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: top-five

Never have I connected so much to a book. As an admitted compulsive liar, my concept of the truth is a manipulative one at best. Lauren Slater uses her truth manipulation as a means to simultaneously write a non-fiction memoir, and a complete lie. Now, grew up learning that Fiction is fake, and non-fiction is not-fake. It's convenient how those letters are set up. Slater pushes this, more than Truman Capote in his "non-fiction novel" In Cold Blood. Slater's experiences that she writes about are...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Erica rated it 3 of 5 stars

First, let me say that I love Slater's style, especially the first half of the book. However, like most nonfiction writers, the ending threw me, and I can see why this book received the backlash it did. I do have to commend Slater for her honesty, however, those slivers of honesty that shed light on her mental state and the true (but not necessarily factual) story she wished to tell.

"'Shh,' everyone was saying, 'you're in denial,' everyone was saying, and I felt grateful that nothing would chang...more

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Jul 21, 2010 Jason Tougaw rated it 3 of 5 stars

Like Hustvedt's The Shaking Woman, you might call this a neurobiography too. But this one is more playfully postmodern--and for me, a little gimmicky. Slater toys with the truth (and therefore the reader). She messes with the autobiographical pact--the contract between writer and reader (described artfully by Philippe Lejeune). The sentences are very good, and the concept is imaginative. I read it quickly and was engaged. Then I felt somewhat irritated. I've taught it a few times and students lo...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Writer's Relief rated it 4 of 5 stars

In LYING, the controversial but brilliant Lauren Slater takes the memoir genre and flips it on its head. I love writers who are brave enough to experiment with the conventions of a genre, some with more success than others. But, Slater does just what she sets out to do—she writes a metaphorical memoir and makes her readers decide for themselves what is the definition of “truth” in creative nonfiction.

LYING is Slater’s coming-of-age memoir, exploring her epilepsy that deeply affects her perceptio...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Elissa Washuta rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's difficult to describe this brilliant memoir without reducing it to a simple, inadequate description--it is about illness, it is about the slipperiness of what is real in memory and even in present experience. It is also, like many memoirs, a coming-of-age story. However, it is also one of the most powerful, artful memoirs I have read. Slater's gorgeously crafted lines and scenes set up a world in which factuality is less important than narrative truth, and then she takes this idea a step be...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

_Lying_ works with epilepsy as a metaphor for memoir, and Slater uses this metaphor because she has been diagnosed with borderline personality, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar, Munchausen's, OCD, depression, and autism, as well as epilepsy at various points in her life. I liked the premise, but found--as I think I am supposed to--the book frustrating to read b/c I was always wondering what was metaphor and what was "true." The purpose of her work is to get us to think about exactly these...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Andrea rated it 5 of 5 stars

But really, this book is fascinating - the writing is excellent, the story captivating, and the ideas it tussles with are ones that all writers (and readers) need to come to a peace with. (In that sense, Lying seems to be a bit like I Think We Need to Talk about Kevin, which I admit to not having read, but that seems to be complicated and troubling in all the right ways. Check out this glorious post from Tales from the Reading Room to see what I mean.)

Slater’s Lying is the story of her childhood...more But really, this book is fascinating - the writing is excellent, the story captivating, and the ideas it tussles with are ones that all writers (and readers) need to come to a peace with. (In that sense, Lying seems to be a bit like I Think We Need to Talk about Kevin, which I admit to not having read, but that seems to be complicated and troubling in all the right ways. Check out this glorious post from Tales from the Reading Room to see what I mean.)

Slater’s Lying is the story of her childhood where she battles continually with epilepsy and a great propensity to tell lies. The book is a memoir of childhood and the ways we talk to ourselves about our experiences. In the end, it’s also a book that engages with the very questions about the nature of nonfiction - where the line between truth and fact sits - and does so in a fair, honest, but fascinating way. I can’t say much more without giving away the book, but if you trust me at all, trust me when I say it’s worth the read.

Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:
I wanted to make my mother happy, that should come as no surprise. She had desires, for a harp, for seasonal seats at the opera, neither of which my father could afford. She was a woman of grand gestures and high standards and she rarely spoke the truth. She told me she was a Holocaust survivor, a hot-air balloonist, a personal friend of Gold Meir. From my mother I learned that truth is bendable, that what you wish is every bit as real as what you are.
I have epilepsy. Or I feel I have epilepsy. Or I wish I had epilepsy, so I could find a way of explaining the dirty, spastic glittering place I had in my mother’s heart. Epilepsy is a fascinating disease because some epileptics are liars, exaggerators, makers of myths and high-flying stories. Doctors don’t know why this is, something to do, maybe, with the way a scar on the brain dents memory or mutates reality. My epilepsy started with the smell of jasmine, and that smell moved into my mouth. And when I opened my mouth about that, all my words seemed colored, and I don’t know where this is my mother or where this is my illness, or whether, like her, I am just confusing fact with fiction, and there is no epilepsy, just a clenched metaphor, a way of telling you what I have to tell you: my tale. (5-6)

This book spins round and round truth, circling in, pulling up for perspective. It reminds me of the riddle about the two dwarves/elves/gnomes at the two doors - one door leads to death, one to life. One dwarf always tells the truth, one always lies. The riddle is to figure out who to ask about the doors. . . the riddle is itself a question of truth.

Slater’s book, in addition to being one of my favorite reading experiences ever, has also given me one of my favorite teaching experiences. Once after a composition course at Santa Clara University, a student emailed me and said that she so appreciated the fact that I had trusted that the students could grapple with the complexities of truth and that I had shown her that truth is complicated. She went on to say that she challenged another teacher with this idea the next semester, much to the teacher’s chagrin. While I cringed a bit about being quoted, me - an adjunct, to a full-time professor, the larger part of me, the part of me that knows that truth is slippery but that we have to do our best to catch it in a loose net of words so that our readers can trust us, smiled a really big smile and filed that email into a special place in my heart and my hard-drive.
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May 14, 2011 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This compelling book has been difficult for me to process. It was not difficult to read. I whizzed through it, neglecting household chores and the telephone. In only 221 pages, Slater's grim account of her "disease" which could be epilepsey or not, tasks us with believing her version of how illness can color a life. Not only has she had some illness but unpleasant interactions with adults who should have helped her along the way. Born to the Jewish tradition she finds comfort in a home for the "...more

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Mar 17, 2007 Brice rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Lying begins: “I exaggerate,” and of course she does. How can you trust a book that states, quite clearly, that it is full of lies?
Slater might have epilepsy or Munchausen, she might see auras, might be experiencing grand mal seizures, might have gotten an operation separating her right and left brain, or she might be lying along every detail to weave a metaphorical story of her life. In some cases, she admits she might be lying, "I have epilepsy. Or I feel I have epilepsy. Or I wish I had epil...more
Lying begins: “I exaggerate,” and of course she does. How can you trust a book that states, quite clearly, that it is full of lies?
Slater might have epilepsy or Munchausen, she might see auras, might be experiencing grand mal seizures, might have gotten an operation separating her right and left brain, or she might be lying along every detail to weave a metaphorical story of her life. In some cases, she admits she might be lying, "I have epilepsy. Or I feel I have epilepsy. Or I wish I had epilepsy, so I could find a way of explaining the dirty, spastic glittering place I had in my mother's heart." In other cases you catch her in her lies many chapters later and are left wondering what else you might have missed.

The book is part puzzle, part postmodern exercise, and a total whirlwind. But more than anything, it is a beautifully descriptive and playful memoir about a young girl coming of age in a terribly troubled family—desperate for a better life, desperate to be heard and seen.
Slater has a PhD in Psychology and was a practicing clinical psychologist for 11 years before transitioning into writing: journalism, research, creative nonfiction and memoir. She has authored six books across these fields, including Welcome To My Country (1996), Prozac Diary (1998), and Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (2004). She has won numerous awards for science writing and creative nonfiction, but she has also drawn heavy criticism for blurring the lines too much between these writing styles. Her clinical research is often driven by narratives, her research methods have been challenged, and she has been accused of creating some of her research subjects from scratch.

Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, is a book that offers great entry into discussion about genre, about the increasingly influential role of creative nonfiction in literature, and about the separations we actively propagate in universities, bookshelves, and (yep) on “Oprah.”

Plus it’s a fun read.

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Apr 07, 2013 Tracie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lauren Slater's memoir Lying constantly forces the reader to decide whether the author is telling the truth about her life or lying. She also forces us to admit to ourselves that all memoirs are actually a mix of truth and lies whether one wants to admit it or not. We are constantly rewriting our own histories. Does Slater suffer from epilepsy, Munchausen's, or metaphor? I will never know, but the book does hold up to multiple readings and close scrutiny, and in spite of the slipperiness of the...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Tami rated it 4 of 5 stars

this was a fine book. i love the way she writes and this book was no exception. it was slightly difficult for me to let go of the "this is a memoir and so it is all literally true" instinct, even though i knew going in that that was most definitely something i had to do. because we never are sure what the literal truth is here.

i did google her dr. neu and found only and ill-reputed shrink. so. again, what is or is not true is not for us to know

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Mar 28, 2009 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

I LOVED this book. It is successful and riveting on several levels: a moving narrative drama, a meditation on truth in memoir and metaphor, an education on epilepsy...a truly unique read. And beautifully written. It is also interesting to consider this memoir and the author's position (written in the late 90s) in light of the recent uproar over truth in memoirs (e.g. James Frey, Augusten Burroughs).

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Mar 31, 2008 Jafar rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very fascinating “memoir” whose principal theme is the author’s struggle with epilepsy. Here’s the trick: Slater insists that this a nonfiction book, but she admits that she’s given her imagination a free rein. She won’t even tell you if she actually had epilepsy or the whole thing is just a fabrication! She’s picked up the right disease for this mischievous purpose. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy have a tendency for emotional instability, mythomania, exaggeration, melodrama, and hypergr...more

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Jan 31, 2011 David Legault rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like this book for presenting contradictions in the nonfiction form, for acknowledging that the ways we present story aim for truth in metaphor, not a truth in a perfect representation of fa ts.

With that said, the book is a bit heavy-handed (often, the narrator breaks out and addresses the reader with "did this really happen or am I lying to you again" type questions, which is usually unnecessary and actually takes away from the contradictory scenes she sometimes presents).

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Apr 05, 2013 Susan added it · review of another edition

It is going to take me a long time to process this book, so I'll just say that it's about growing up, trying to figure out who you are, trying to make peace with who you came from, learning to interact with others, making your own mistakes, deciding what you are willing to acknowledge as fact, and realizing that life is ultimately unknowable. Wow.

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Dec 25, 2008 Alexis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, psychology-reference-research

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the use of illness as metaphor. I know that people have felt uncomfortable with this book because of the ambiguity, but I was okay with that. I felt the underlying meaning was more important than the details. And it's not like she didn't warn us.

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Apr 07, 2008 Alicia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, contemporary-postmodern

I am giving this book three stars because the writing is good and its a fascinating page-turner for sure, but this book annoyed me! Maybe I don't like being lied to, and wasn't in the mood for this game when I read it... but the idea is certainly interesting--that this is a sort of subjective work of creative non-fiction, a fiction-nonfiction hybrid... which when you think about it is what memoir writing really is. Maybe I'm irritated by Slater constantly saying she does not want this to be a fi...more

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Sep 27, 2011 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, brains, psychology

I'm supposed to write a 500 word review of this for a class I'm taking, but for now I'll just say I liked it. Her prose is spare and effective, and I like head trips in general (and am very unconcerned with the notion of "truth"), so this works for me.

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Oct 13, 2007 Modern Hermeneut rated it 2 of 5 stars

As an essayist, Slater occasionally strikes gold, but this longer work is ruined by her inelegant posturing. It's an UNintentional exercise in narcissism masquerading as an intentional exercise in narcissism.

The only thing that recommends this memoir is the extended analogy Slater draws between the erotic pleasure/pain of double-penetration and the cognitive dissonance of a corpus colostomy (where they split the brain down the middle). I had to reread this section multiple times before I was cer...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2013

At the end of reading this, I put the book down and realised that I still have no idea whether this is a memoir or a novel. Which means that Slater accomplished what she set out to do.

Fascinating reading, be it fact or fiction.

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Feb 11, 2009 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Deftly written to leave you wondering whether the autobiographical memories the author shares are inspired by her epileptic seizures or sheer imagination. My friend Ruth suggested it, and I was pleasantly surprised.

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About Lauren Slater

Lauren Slater is a psychologist and writer. She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome To My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life With Animals.

Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, amongst them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and...more

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Books by Lauren Slater

Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

Love Works Like This: Moving from One Kind of Life to Another

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Quotes from Lying: A Metaphorical ...

“Everyone knows that a lot of memoirs have made-up scenes; it's obvious. And everyone knows that half the time at least fictions contain literal autobiographical truths. So how do we decide what's what, and does it even matter?” — 6 people liked it

“I record my life, sifting and trying to separate what is real from what I’ve dreamed. I have decided not to tell you what is fact versus what is unfact primarily because (a) I am giving you a portrait of the essence of me, and (b) because, living where I do, living in the chasm that cuts through thought, it is lonely… come with me, reader. I am toying with you, yes, but for a real reason. I am asking you to enter the confusion with me, to give up the ground with me, because sometimes that frightening floaty place is really the truest of all. Kierkegaard says, ‘The greatest lie of all is the feeling of firmness beneath our feet. We are most honest when we are lost.’ Enter that lostness with me. Live in the place I am, where the view is murky, where the connecting bridges and orienting maps have been surgically stripped away.” — 5 people liked it

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title link	preview: Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir
avg rating	preview: Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir Goodreads rating: 3.88 (811 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71960.Lying?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309282492l/71960.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71960.Lying?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir by Lauren Slater[/url]

Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

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