About this item
A darkly funny, intense memoir about mental illness, memory and storytelling, from an acclaimed novelist. When Rob Roberge learns that he's likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he is terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record 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 opening 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 the stories that lay at the heart of our self-conception really 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. Blackly comic and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down and out existence cobbled together across the country, from musicians' crashpads around Boston, to seedy bars popular with sideshow freaks in Florida, to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep addiction and mental illness from destroying the good life 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.
About the Author
Rob Roberge is the author of the upcoming book of stories, WORKING BACKWARDS FROM THE WORST MOMENT OF MY LIFE (Red Hen, Fall, 2010) and the novels More Than They Could Chew (Perennial, Dark Alley/Harper Collins, February 2005) and Drive (Hollyridge Press, 2006). He teaches writing at the Antioch University Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing, UC-Riverside's Palm Desert MFA program and the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. His stories have been featured in ZYZZYVA, Chelsea, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Ten Writers Worth Knowing Issue of The Literary Review. His work has also been anthologized in Another City (City Lights, 2001), It's All Good (Manic D Press, 2004) and SANTI: Lives of the Modern Saints (Black Arrow Press, 2007). Newer work is scheduled to appear, or has appeared, in PENTHOUSE, BLACK CLOCK and OC Noir, part of the series that includes San Francisco Noir, LA Noir and Las Vegas Noir. He plays guitar and sings with several LA bands, including, among others, the punk pioneers, The Urinals. In his spare time, he restores and rebuilds vintage amplifiers and quack medical devices. For news and more info, visit & or email at either www.myspace.com/robroberge or www.robroberge.com
