Where can you find truth in a world that is so thoroughly ruled by lies? That is the question tackled by the investigation of a French journalist who endeavours to shed light on the enigma of an unexplained death: that of the Argentinian writer Alejandro Bevilacqua, found lying on the pavement underneath his balcony in Madrid in the mid-1970s. The few accounts of those who knew him – which include those of his last lover, a former fellow prison inmate, a sworn enemy and even the author Alberto Manguel himself – are contradictory and unreliable.
Poor devil with a troubled childhood, literary genius and irresistible seducer, ordinary man masquerading as hero, pure and simple impostor – these are but a few facets of a mysterious figure in this tribute to falsehood. Between the lines, the reader must discover the only worthwhile truth: the fascinating homage Alberto Manguel pays to literature and its shape-shifting creations, which give infinite expressions to the objects of our desires.
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"[Manguel’s fiction] works from
the human core outwards, and is
in fact elaborately though
unpretentiously constructed." –
The Guardian
"If Paul Auster wore a friendly beard and had more of a Latin temperament, he might produce something like this richly hued, melancholy and funny puzzle of a novel."-
The Guardian
"
All Men are Liars is interesting as an exercise in storytelling... but is lifted to excellence by more traditional values: in its sense of place... in its love of characters... in the colloquial roll of its gossip-spun action." -
The Guardian
"Clever, witty and entertaining; and very timely in a society increasingly accustomed to living in a blizzard of lies." -
The Times
"
All Men Are Liars is a remarkable novel — richly textured, ingeniously constructed and deeply unsettling." -
The Spectator
"The novel... aims to shed light on the circumstances surrounding [Bevilacqua]'s death, but what it actually achieves is broader and more interesting. The predominant pleasure, as we pass from one narrator to another, is a growing impression (an illusion, perhaps, but a pleasing one) of a man's life coming into focus." -
TLS
"A meticulously constructed and brilliantly
executed discourse on the nature of truth and writing... [the author]
has managed to create a work that is
expertly weighted: at once Latin American in spirit and
yet universal in its reach." -
The literary Review
"A moving paean to the power of the written word and a condemnation of the repressive powers that so often seek to subvert it." -
The Tablet
"This playful, ingenious but finally tragic novel invites us... into a labyrinth of rival narratives with an all-too-real monster at its heart." -
The Independent
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Read an excerpt from
All Men Are Liars
This book is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
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