Janice Erlbaum
I got the idea for the new novel, I, LIAR, from a few sources.
1. My agent kept saying, "You should write a novel! You should write the next 'Gone Girl!'"
2. I'd been thinking about writing from the perspective of a liar/scammer for a while. My second book, HAVE YOU FOUND HER, was about being lied to and scammed by someone with Munchausen's syndrome (a compulsion to fake or cause illness to win attention). After writing the book, I thought, "You know, I bet HER side of the story is more interesting than mine." So that had been in my head for a number of years already.
3. One day over lunch, I asked my husband, "What should I write about next?" And he said, "Munchausen's. Obviously."
4. Two weeks later, I came across a news story about a woman who'd poisoned her son over many months so she could get attention and sympathy -- classic Munchausen's-by-proxy. I found her so interesting (and infuriating, and disgusting, and yet incredibly compelling), and I felt this immediate anxiety -- if I didn't write a book about someone like her right away, some other writer was going to get to it first.
At the time, I was writing a very painful memoir about my mother's death -- so painful that I'd temporarily put it aside. So the night I saw that news story, I thought, "Why not write that novel my agent keeps suggesting?" It'd be a lark, just for fun, no stakes. The exact opposite of the excruciating mom memoir. That's the night I started a new document, and this project was born.
1. My agent kept saying, "You should write a novel! You should write the next 'Gone Girl!'"
2. I'd been thinking about writing from the perspective of a liar/scammer for a while. My second book, HAVE YOU FOUND HER, was about being lied to and scammed by someone with Munchausen's syndrome (a compulsion to fake or cause illness to win attention). After writing the book, I thought, "You know, I bet HER side of the story is more interesting than mine." So that had been in my head for a number of years already.
3. One day over lunch, I asked my husband, "What should I write about next?" And he said, "Munchausen's. Obviously."
4. Two weeks later, I came across a news story about a woman who'd poisoned her son over many months so she could get attention and sympathy -- classic Munchausen's-by-proxy. I found her so interesting (and infuriating, and disgusting, and yet incredibly compelling), and I felt this immediate anxiety -- if I didn't write a book about someone like her right away, some other writer was going to get to it first.
At the time, I was writing a very painful memoir about my mother's death -- so painful that I'd temporarily put it aside. So the night I saw that news story, I thought, "Why not write that novel my agent keeps suggesting?" It'd be a lark, just for fun, no stakes. The exact opposite of the excruciating mom memoir. That's the night I started a new document, and this project was born.
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