by Tanen Jones
I put the phone in my shirt pocket, where it buzzed against my chest, as if Nancy were speaking into the chamber of my rib cage, lips pressed up against my skin.
Robin, I’ve got
I’d never hear that name again. Nancy was the last one who would say it. I wanted to feel her saying it as long as possible.
At a Shell station in Arizona, I pulled over and went into the minimart with a hundred-dollar bill. “Can you break it?” I asked the guy at the counter.
He was tall and brown, wearing a ball cap and sucking on a piece of licorice. “Just barely,” he said around the licorice. “You don’t have anything else?”
I shook my head. “Can I put forty toward the gas?”
“Buy something else,” he said. “I can’t be giving you everything in the register. Grab some snacks. You on a road trip?”
“Sort of,” I said, lifting a case of Poland Spring from the stack beside the counter and heaving it into his arms. “I’m moving to LA.”
“LA, huh?” he called as I disappeared into the aisles. There was nobody else in the minimart, and I felt his eyes on my back as I snatched up pretzels, sunglasses, a bouquet of fake roses. “You going to be in a movie?”
I nodded, coming back toward him and dropping my loot on the counter. “I hope so. My dad left me some money in his will to get started. A hundred thousand dollars. Can you believe it?”
He whistled, ringing up the pretzels. “Lucky. What’s your name, so I know you when I see it?”
“Alice,” I told him. The man behind the counter smiled and handed me my change and filled my arms with water and flowers. Against my chest, my phone went on singing, tapping out my eulogy.
To Jean and Janet
for teaching me
the world is wide.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am not a mother. But, like a lot of women, I’ve spent a significant portion of my life thinking about whether I would like to be one—or whether I should be one. I’m anxious, a worrier. I don’t like to gamble. I’m afraid of pain. I researched all the ways it could go wrong. I imagined the children I might have or not have, the ways my body could change. The Better Liar is a nightmare, full of wild shadows and exaggerations, but at the center of it is a real fear: that if I had a baby, I might not feel what I am supposed to feel, and I might be too afraid to tell anyone.
One in seven women experience significant depression, anxiety, intrusive repetitive thoughts, panic, or posttraumatic stress during pregnancy or postpartum.*1 Because intrusive thoughts and anxiety often center around fears of hurting the baby, it can be difficult for people to tell their partners, family members, or doctors about these thoughts. Some even worry their baby will be taken away. You can imagine how many people go on suffering from postpartum depression—an incredibly common experience—because it can be so difficult to get help.
People of color, especially, are blocked from navigating the healthcare system because they are so frequently ignored or disbelieved about their pain.*2 In the United States, Black women are two to three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women,*3 and in New York City, where I live, they are twelve times more likely.*4 Not even eminence or wealth protects against this racist failure of care. Shalon Irving, an epidemiologist at the CDC, died from complications of high blood pressure after multiple postpartum appointments where she explained, “There is something wrong, I know my body. I don’t feel well,” and was told, “If there’s no clots, there’s nothing wrong.”*5
I don’t say this to scare people. I say it to provoke reflection on how we regard parents who struggle, parents who suffer—and on which parents get more competent care, and why. We owe these parents greater empathy and support.
I want to stress that while it is crucial for people experiencing postpartum depression to receive care, I don’t believe it’s something that can or should be forced on anyone. What Robin does to Leslie in this book is extremely dangerous in the United States because we have conscripted police officers into mental-health-care work, and that is not their primary training. When you involve the police in an intervention for someone with mental health struggles without their consent, especially a person of color, you risk their life*6—and, less seriously, you risk incurring thousands of dollars in hospital bills they may be unable to pay.
Instead, encourage them to seek help independently, in a way that prioritizes their comfort and control. It’s a blessing that postpartum depression has lost some of its stigma over the past few years and is better understood than in previous decades. This means that it is unlikely for someone like Leslie to experience what her mother went through. Leslie, in today’s world, probably went on to meet with a doctor who recommended a therapist who could prescribe an antidepressant that Leslie could take of her own volition.
I know a little of the fear she feels, and I know the shame that follows it. I wanted to write a book that followed my fear to its fullest extent, to see what lived there at the end. I want to make a world where that shame is no longer justified. I hope The Better Liar causes us to discuss how we fail parents during and after childbirth. And I hope, if you are a parent who sees yourself in Leslie’s fear and in my fear, that you are heard, and believed, and helped.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255
suicidepreventionlifeline.org for text and chat as well as online support groups
The American Psychological Association’s information page on postpartum depression symptoms and treatment:
apa.org/pi/women/resources/reports/postpartum-depression
Postpartum Support International offers a helpline that is answered from 5:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. Pacific time. Call 1-800-944-4773 or text 503-894-9453.
postpartum.net
*1 postpartum.net/learn-more/frequently-asked-questions/
*2 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2617895
*3 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17194867/
*4 npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why
*5 Ibid.
*6 treatmentadvocacycenter.org/key-issues/public-service-costs/2976-people-with-untreated-mental-illness-16-times-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-law-enforcement-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book exists thanks to the help of dozens of people, but first and foremost, I want to thank my agent, Erin Harris, who found me in the slush and elevated, clarified, and broadened what I had imagined. Erin, you always help me see the skeleton under the text, and I’m so grateful for your brilliant insight and empathy.
Thank you to my editor, Elana Seplow-Jolley. I knew right away that you truly understood the book I wanted to make. You’re so generous with your time and your ideas—I’m grateful for the many hours you’ve devoted to the Voigts, and to me. This book is a binding, but it has unbound me in some ways, and that’s your doing. Your work means more to me than I can express.
Thank you to my UK editors, Jade Chandler and Sara Nisha Adams. I never even dared to dream that this book would exist so far away from the place I wrote it, and you made me feel that it could speak to people everywhere. Thank you for your thoughtful notes and your belief in me.
I am grateful to all the people at Penguin Random House who put so many hours into my book, among them Evan Camfield and Pamela Feinstein, who paid close attention to the details; Pamela Alders, who kept us all on track; Diane Hobbing, who made the interior look so beautiful, down to individually created emojis and the running heads I always wanted; Belina Huey, designer of a cover that surprised me and yet made perfect sense, just like the best twists; Taylor Noel, marketing manager and ideal early reader; Melissa Sanford, who let the world know about The Better Liar; and Kara Cesare, Jennifer Hershey, Kim Hovey, and Kara Welsh at the helm of Ballantine,
who took a chance on my first novel and made my dreams come true.
Thanks to the friends who read my book before it was real: Melissa Mejias Parker, Hannah Allaman, Peter Schultz, Arthur Iannacone, and especially Celina Reynes, for your invaluable encouragement and insight.
Thank you to my family for the books you’ve written and read to me over the years, the endless word games and puzzles, pennies for memorized poetry, unlimited library rentals on my twelfth birthday, and your belief in me. Thank you for taking me to Albuquerque every year, and to so many other places.
Most of all I want to thank my partner, Matt Sharp. I loved you first when you wrote to me, and you read me as no one else has. You did the work of making room for me to write, sometimes literally, sometimes emotionally. I am so grateful to know you. I won’t forget, bird—this will be our year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TANEN JONES grew up in Texas and North Carolina. She has a degree in American history and spent several years editing law and criminal justice textbooks. A queer author, she writes about queer women in dark spaces. Tanen now lives in New York with her partner, where she writes to the sound of her neighbor’s piano. The Better Liar is her debut novel.
tanenjones.com
Twitter: @TanenJones
Instagram: @tanenjones
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.