On Lying About Reading, or: How I Learned That Stieg Larsson Is Good, Actually

The night I lied about Stieg Larsson I was working the front desk of a yoga studio. There is a culture of friendly detachment there; we are a big staff, and everyone is very part time. As a result, the staff and the clients don’t know each other well and there is a lot of mystery in terms of what everyone cares about besides yoga. This never really bothered me until the night I lied. It is not of particular interest in that space that my life revolves around books; that I spend most of my time reading books, teaching books and trying to write books and it is usually a blessed reprieve from that obsession when I’m at the studio. But when one of our regulars arrived breathless for the 7:30 slow flow explaining she was caught up reading The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and lost track of time, she just had to know who the killer was, and had I ever read it? that I felt my other life, my real life threatened. It was the first time someone had asked me about a book at the studio and I was desperate to signal that I was a reader. I’ve known one compulsive liar for many years. His lies started out totally banal. I knew he’d dropped out of college but whenever I saw him, he’d tell me about all the classes he was taking, not realizing he was listing several more courses than anyone would take in a semester. This made sense. He was self-conscious about not being in school, and I didn’t call him out. Eventually his lies escalated to him claiming to run a multimillion-dollar website building company (that he can’t tell anyone the name of) and is constantly refusing to sell despite tempting offers. I believe this happened because the lies began as things that were so close to true, he felt no qualms about saying them. When no one challenged him, it became an acceptable way to move through the world. To say things that you could imagine doing as if […]

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