ROB ROBERGE discusses his book LIAR with DAVID ULIN

Liar: A Memoir (Crown Publishing)

Indie darling and novelist Rob Roberge makes his major-house debut with Liar: A Memoir, an intense, darkly funny book of addiction and mental illness, relapse, recovery, and the nature of memory. Liar is Roberge’s desperate attempt to document his life when faced with the prospect of forgetting it after years of hard living and too frequent concussions suffered during substance-induced blackouts.

In an effort to preserve his identity (for what is identity if not memories?), Roberge records the most formative moments of his life—ranging from the brutal murder of his childhood girlfriend, to a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, to singing and playing guitar with his band the Urinals as an opening act for famed indie band Yo La Tengo at The Fillmore in San Francisco. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile are the stories that lie at the heart of who we think we are.

As Liar twists and turns through Roberge’s life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll on its head. Darkly comic and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down-and-out existence scattered across the country, from musicians’ crashpads around Boston, to seedy bars in Florida popular with sideshow freaks, to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep his demons from destroying the good things he has built in his better moments, he is forced to acknowledge the increasingly blurred line between the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves. 

A reflection on memory and an intimate look at recovery and redemption, Liar delves into the complications of the healing process and the challenges faced in trying to rebuild a life, all while Roberge infuses the narrative with candor and humor.Liar is a memoir that will provoke and engage.

Praise for Liar

“Roberge’s writing is both drop-dead gorgeous and mind-bendingly smart.” —Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild

“Roberge is a modern master of the down-and-out-that-just-got-worse. His stories are dark and thrilling. They take hold of the reader like some bad, bracing dope and don’t let go until you feel the full measure of your own humanity. Prose this carefully wrought and true puts him in the tradition of Bukowski, Hammett, and Denis Johnson.” —Steve Almond

“Roberge is the bard of the rough road, singer of the long haul, both lyrical and ferociously realistic.”—Janet Fitch

“Roberge’s words bring it all back to life for me—the sounds, the sights, the smells, and the tastes. And it’s not always a pretty ride. I like that Roberge never takes the easy way out.” —Steve Wynn, The Dream Syndicate

Rob Roberge is the author of four books of fiction, most recently The Cost of Living. He is a core faculty member at UCR/Palm Desert’s MFA program and has taught at several universities, including the University of California’s MFA programs at the main campuses of Riverside, Antioch, and Los Angeles, and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. His work has been featured in Penthouse, The Rumpus, and The Nervous Breakdown, and his stories have been widely anthologized. Roberge also plays guitar and sings with the Los Angeles–based band the Urinals.

David L. Ulin is the author, most recently, of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, which was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. His novel, Ear to the Ground, will be published in April. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he spent ten years as book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times.