Liar, Liar

by Laurence Yep

Branded in the past as a liar, a teen-aged boy trying to prove his friend's death in a car crash was no accident finds himself stalked by a seemingly respectable businessman for a similar fate.

Genres: Young Adult

165 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.

Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

Reviews

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liar, Liar is a really good book! It is about a guy, Marsh who always plays pranks but has a lot of enemies because of that, when he gets in a car crash his best friend thinks that the crash was more than just an accident. His best friend, Sean and his sister, Nora team up to look for clues to see who could have killed Marsh!

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marsh is always pulling tricks on people. In fact, it was the ramifications of one of those pranks that brought Marsh and Sean together as friends. But when they let the air out of the tires of a Porsche, Sean gets a bad feeling. Not just because they're spotted and have to flee the scene, but when he sees the man's "radar eyes" staring after them and writing something down, he fears the worst. After all, Sean can't afford another run-in with the cops. But things remain quiet until one night Marsh and Sean are driving home from the movies when the breaks don't work in Marsh's car, the car flips and Marsh is killed. As Sean tries to deal with this tragedy, it suddenly occurs to him that maybe it wasn't an accident at all, but someone seeking revenge for one of Marsh's pranks. With the help of Marsh's sister, Nora, they begin to investigate. But when they go to the police, the question of Sean's prior police record becomes an issue and no one will believe his story - not even Nora anymore. But there's someone out there who know he's right.

A real good page-turner, very suspenseful. Some good irony: the consequences of a prank brought Sean and Marsh together and also separated them. The description of Ross Tower's house - with perfectly manicured front lawn, but the hidden backyard weed-infested and unkempt is a great metaphor for the two sides of Ross Tower. Sean's anguished attempts to get someone to believe him, despite what has happened in the past, is a theme to which teens can relate.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this sometime in 5th or 6th grade. I only remember enjoying it and that it had something to do with a kid investigating an adult for murder maybe. I remember a car being tampered with too. I don't know; it was close to 30 years ago.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book!