Lie with Me
AuthorPhilippe Besson
TranslatorMolly Ringwald
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
GenreAutobiographical novel
PublisherJulliard
Publication date
January 2017
Published in English
2019
Pages190
AwardsPrix Maison de la Presse
ISBN2260029884

Lie with Me (French: Arrête avec tes mensonges, lit.'Stop with Your Lies') is a novel by French writer Philippe Besson. It was published in 2017 to critical acclaim, and became a bestseller in France.[1] It was translated into English by Molly Ringwald under the title Lie with Me and was lauded by English-language reviewers.[2][3]

Plot

Set in 1984 in rural France, in the small town of Barbezieux, the novel recounts the teenage love affair between the narrator and his schoolmate Thomas Andrieu.[4]

Impact and Adaptations

The novel became a bestseller in France.[1] The novel won the Prix Psychologies du Roman inspiran and the Prix Maison de la Presse.[5][6] The novel was a finalist for the Prix Orange du Livre.[7]

Besson, in a piece published in January 2020, writes about the significance to him of the novel The Lover by Marguerite Duras.

When, thirty years after my first reading, I threw myself into writing Lie With Me, it’s The Lover that I placed in front of me, on my desk, in plain view. The 1984 edition, yellowed, dog-eared, stained. I knew that I was going to write about my seventeen-year-old self, about what happened the year I turned seventeen, and I have never forgotten that that was the year I read The Lover for the first time. But there was something else: I had understood that I was going to call forth my memories, like Duras did, that I was going to write about the memory of adolescence, like Duras.[8]

The novel was adapted in 2022 into a film of the same name, which premiered at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival on 27 August 2022.[9] It was also adapted into a play performed in January 2023 at the Théâtre de la Tempête in Paris.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 Hadley, Tessa (6 September 2019). "Lie With Me by Philippe Besson review – a French bestseller". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  2. "NPR Cookie Consent and Choices". NPR. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  3. Collins, Lauren (9 May 2019). "Philippe Besson's Book of a Lifetime". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  4. Kelly, Hillary (1 May 2019). "This Year's Call Me by Your Name Is French: More Meta But Just As Hot". Vulture. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  5. "Le prix Maison de la presse révèle sa sélection finale 2017". Livres Hebdo (in French). Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  6. "Prix Psychologies du Roman | Livres Hebdo". archive.wikiwix.com. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  7. Aïssaoui, Mohammed (3 May 2017). "Prix Orange du Livre : les cinq finalistes". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  8. "The Lover by Marguerite Duras". Five Dials. 21 January 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  9. "Arrête avec tes mensonges" (in French). Angoulême Francophone Film Festival. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  10. Varlin, François. "Philippe Besson voit son roman Arrête avec tes mensonges adapté au théâtre de la Tempête – (03/01/23)". Théâtral Magazine (in French). Retrieved 10 September 2023.
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