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To Name the Bigger Lie: A Memoir in Two Stories
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About This Book
"Has the page-turning quality of a thriller." —NPR "Strange and wonderful…A book for our times." —The New York Times Book Review "Propulsive…mesmerizing…breathtaking." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) This unforgettable memoir traces the ramifications of a series of lies that threaten to derail the author's life—exploring the line between fact and fiction, reality and conspiracy. In To Name the Bigger Lie, Sarah Viren "has pulled off a magic trick of fantastic proportion" (The Washington Post), telling the story of an all-too-real investigation into her personal and professional life that she expands into a profound exploration of the nature of truth. The memoir begins as Viren is researching what she believes will be a book about her high school philosophy teacher, a charismatic instructor who taught her and her classmates to question everything—eventually, even the reality of historical atrocities. As she digs into the effects of his teachings, her life takes a turn into the fantastical when her wife, Marta, is notified that she's being investigated for sexual misconduct at the university where they both teach. To Name the Bigger Lie follows the investigation as it challenges everything Sarah thought she knew about truth, testimony, and the difference between the two. She knows the claims made against Marta must be lies, and as she attempts to uncover the identity of the person behind them and prove her wife's innocence, she's drawn back into the questions that her teacher inspired all those years ago: about the nature of truth, the value of skepticism, and the stakes we all have in getting the story right. An incisive journey into honesty and betrayal, this memoir explores the powerful pull of dangerous conspiracy theories and the pliability of personal narratives in a world dominated by hoaxes and fakes. An "ouroboros of a book" (The New York Times) and a "bold new approach to the genre of memoir" (The Millions), To Name the Bigger Lie also reads like the best of psychological thrillers—made all the more riveting because it's true. A compelling, incisive journey into honesty and betrayal, this memoir explores the powerful pull of dangerous conspiracy theories and the pliability of personal narratives in a world dominated by hoaxes and fakes. To Name the Bigger Lie reads like the best of psychological thrillers—made all the more riveting because it's true.
Reviews
"A compelling and propulsive memoir that interrogates the nature of truth and trust."
"This might sound self-congratulatory, but it struck me as the ideal ending for this ouroboros of a book."
"Viren quickly and masterfully re-complicates what only appeared for a second like a quick fix: It is in speaking the truths that are hardest to voice and to hear — like the fall of an idol, like the urge for retaliation when wronged — that we find our way out of the darkness of deceit."
"Propulsive, one-of-a-kind ..."
"Whiles and the individual fabricating the charges are outed and punished, but if we understand anything from To Name the Bigger Lie, it's that narratives are rarely so tidy, and the only thing we can do is make the best sense of the world with what we have."
"Gripping in part because it combines a detective story with a Kafkaesque nightmare of becoming tangled in academic bureaucracy."
"A poignant musing on the changing nature of truth."
"This, she says, is the work of storytelling."
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