Canuck Book Review – Linden MacIntyre’s Why Men Lie

Why Men Lie is the third book in a series that takes place in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton by Canadian author and journalist Lynden MacIntyre. As a follow up to Giller Prize Winning The Bishop’s Man, this installment of the story follows Effie MacAskill Gillis—a member of the cast in the last two novels in the series.

Effie is an intelligent and accomplished woman. She is a well-respected professor an unnamed university in Toronto. Leads an active social life and has a strong relationship with her adult daughter. However, as reader of the previous two novels will know, Effie has had a rocky past filled with repressed memories that haunt her throughout the book in a series of cloudy flashbacks. As with MacIntyre’s previous two novels, the present is wound fluidly with the past. Effie’s character enhances your understanding of her life and feelings through narrated flashbacks and musings.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about this novel is that it is written in the female perspective. MacIntyre has been known for many years, both as a journalist and novelist, to have an impeccable ability to tell a story. Throughout reading this novel, the reader will forget that it is, in face, a male author and feel connected with Effie.

If one picks up this novel to see exactly why men lie, they may be disappointed. However, instead of giving the reader an answer, it leads them in the search for truth in Effie’s life and even their own. Sarah Purdy is an avid reader and reviewer of books for The Silo.