The Lie

by Fredrica Wagman

Coming of age in 1940s America, Ramona Smollens takes her cues on female sexuality from Hollywood movie stars. None is more voluptuous than Rita Hayworth, known as a captivating temptress whose image... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586421573
• ISBN13: 9781586421571
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Zoland Books
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Nothing but lies...

Romona Smollens has lived her whole life completely ignored. The day she meets Mr. Soloman Columbus is the first day she feels as though she is someone. He sits down beside her on a bench across from Belgravia Hotel. If not for his ten penis-like fingers, and the sadness that seems to emanate off of him, Romana isn't sure if she would have even noticed him. He is nothing special, except that he listens to her every word, and makes her feel as though she is the center of his world. Shortly after their meeting Ramona finds herself marrying Mr. Solomon Columbus, but why?, is it because she truly loves him or because he is infatuated with her as no one else has ever been. Ramona isn't sure, she's not even sure she knows what love is and what it should feel like. She just knows that he loves her, and she must do everything to keep him by her side, even if it means to Lie. Every night Mr. Colombus rolls atop Ramona, and goes about 'making-love' to her. She's unsure what this could possibly mean, especially because she can't feel a thing down there, she's completely frozen. That doesn't mean he has to know about it though, and so she pretends she's having the time of her life, as though she were her beloved Rita Hayworth, the goddess of the flamenco and sex. Her lies build up inside her, creating a sort of wall against the real world. She can't seem to tell the truth regardless of how hard she tries, and it makes it worse when she realizes that her husband may have someone else on the side. How could he do such a thing to her? How can he come home every night to her smelling of that woman, of her rich gardenia perfume! It becomes an obsession for Ramona, to find her husband's mistress, and make him stop the lies. I wasn't sure if I would be interested in reading this book when the publisher contacted me to review it. I was skeptical, by solely looking at the cover! I know, it's horrible to read a book by it's cover alone, but I tend to do that more often than I should. Before I could tell myself no, I decided I needed to read a little about the book, and decide from it's description whether it would be something I would enjoy. The description alone caught my attention, and I decided I should give it a go. I took this book with me to the bar to read it, yes, to the bar. I'm not a big drinker and so every Monday night I arrive at the bar with a book in hand just in case I go out in poker. Before I even sat down to play my Monday game, I started reading this book and had a hard time putting it down. I immedietly wanted to know what would happen to Ramona, and how her beloved Rita Hayworth would be portrayed in the book. That first night I read half of the book before poker even started, and was dissapointed when I had to put it down to even play the game in the first place. I really enjoyed this book, and was surprised by the ending, although I'm not going to give anything away because I really believe that you should give this book a try. It's a sto

The Lie-A Review

In this story the main character Romona has been living a very sheltered and sad life when she runs into Mr. Columbus who will soon be her husband. Throughout the book Romona is busy keeping parts of her life a secret. Those secrets range for parts of her abusive homelife growing up, to her intimate relationship with her husband, to in general lying about every part of her life. She is so caught up in this life of lies that she has a hard time telling the truth and lives a very sad life. There is a great twist at the end that I won't reveal here (don't want to spoil it). At first the book took a bit of getting used to. The Author uses a very descriptive writing style that I find makes it hard to get engrossed in the book (others swear that this helps with get engrossed into a book). Very early on you feel attached to the main character Romona and are in you heart hoping that she begins to realize that the life of lies she has created is killing any chance at her happiness. When the twist at the end does come you it takes your breath away. To me this book had that great quality of getting you to care about a character and still keeping you guessing until the very end. Although this book might not be for everyone, I feel that is it was a great short, but intense read.

Disturbing and haunting --- and brilliantly written

I want to tell you about this disturbing, erotic, haunting novel by a veteran writer you have never heard. But on the off-chance you will find The Lie too disturbing, erotic and haunting to read, I want to share a passage that gave me information I've found nowhere else: "Success teaches nothing...all that's genuine and powerful that understands beyond all understanding comes from all the terrible failures that have scorched and honed and molded us into who we'll finally be... failure has nothing to do with rejection, or with humiliation, or with losing; it has only to do with not fighting back." That's what they call "news you can use." It's also a link to the sadness at the heart of this book, which starts with 17 year-old Roberta Smollens sitting on a park bench in Philadelphia a week after the death of the father she hated and who, it seems, hated her. A man sits down next to her. He's Solomon Columbus. It's not long - I mean, it's the same day --- that Roberta takes Solomon to her attic bedroom and begins the affair that will, a month later, result in marriage. For Solomon, this marriage is pure joy --- he's scored a beautiful woman, and he can have her whenever he wants. And the thing is, he wants Roberta all the time. That's okay with Roberta because that's what wives do. But she's hardly enraptured by the experience. She regards his lovemaking as "great chugging, puffing, huffing, locomotive... tearing down the tracks." Her own pleasure? It does not happen. Inside, she's frozen --- she feels nothing. Which is how she comes to be obsessed with Rita Hayworth. As Fredrica Wagman notes in an explanatory essay: "My fascination with Rita Hayworth began when I was very young because my mother was so enthralled with Rita Hayworth herself that she named me Rita, and although she polished my name off with the name Fredrica in the middle, it was the name Rita that profoundly connected me to my mother -- to my childhood and to that exquisite creature who ruled the sliver screen for all my growing years." Wagman is a writer who notices every bruise and blemish, especially the psychic ones that never heal without love and therapy. So her Rita Hayworth is not the movie star with the glam life. For Wagman, Hayworth is a tragic victim: "Rita's father took his young, beautiful and extremely talented daughter to Mexico, frequenting cheap night clubs and filthy dance halls where the liquor was flowing so they could eek out a bit of money on which to live by dancing for "tips". Things were so bad at times that Rita was forced by her father to catch fish off of wooden piers, often kneeling for hours in order to catch them with her bare hands and if that day she caught nothing, her father would beat her within an inch of her life, all the while introducing her as his wife and using her sexually." You guess correctly if you sense that this short --- 214 pages --- novel takes the reader to places that nicer novelists never go. Wagman is good at this stuff

Book Review: The Lie

The Review On an afternoon in the rain, a week after her father's death, Ramona meets Solomon Columbus, her future husband. Mesmerized by his odd features and his pronounced sadness, she sits with him as they share their stories while chainsmoking the afternoon away. Later drenched by the rain, Ramona leads him to her home where her lonely and damaged mother, Trixie, meets them with her disdain and contempt. After she insists that Solomon leave, he tells her that he intends to marry her daughter. They avoid Trixie by a set of back stairs that led to a old, musty attic. There they spend four days holed up in dust, heat, and smoke. Ramona and Solomon marry and she moves in with him to a more affluent home. He is deeply in love with Ramona, however Ramona's past has damaged her psyche to the point that she may be totally incapable of experiencing true love with her husband. This book goes on to reveal more about Ramona's past and her present. She struggles with her relationship with both her husband and her mother and much of that stems from her past. She is fascinated and consumed with Rita Hayworth. It has been told that Rita Hayworth had suffered from an abusive relationship with her father. More information on the life of Rita Hayworth may be found HERE and HERE. To avoid spoilers, I will keep the remaining details about this story the secrecy of the pages within the book. Wagman has written this book in an almost poetic pentameter. It is not a "classically" written novel, but its words bring about waves of emotion. Many of the passages brought me to a halt and gave me pause to consider my past. This book is unlike anything that I've read in the past two years and its uniqueness brought me a certain fondness for this book that I will always maintain within the walls of my heart. Relationships between mothers and daughters are sometimes difficult at best. For the heroine of this book, her connection to her mother was one that saddened me to the core. This passage in the book, when Ramona is with her mother at lunch, was one that really affected me: "Fine," I answered... hoping against hope on the one hand that this would be the day... and on the other... hoping that I'd have the strength to just shut up and not say anything if this wasn't the day no matter how much I craved confiding in her... telling her things... sharing... only why - why did I crave confiding in her - she was mean spirited and nasty and never gave good advice - didn't I know this, so what was the lure... as we sat there... two little kernels again - each sitting completely encased in our own little crystal ball across from each other with nothing touching... not in any way... not even the crystals... as we gazed at each other awkwardly... looking for something... each of us... only what... as the craving to tell her what was going on with Mr. Columbus began gaining... gaining... the craving to divulge... to wipe away the dividing line between he

Great Novel!

What a novel! This book was interesting, unique and engaging. The Lie gave me so much to think about. The first thing I noticed about the book was the cover. It was eye catching and pretty. I would have bought this book in the bookstore with a cover like this. First of all, the writing is beautiful. It is written in a stream of consciousness type of form. It reads almost like a lyric. This form of narrative gives you an excellent insight into the inner workings of Ramona's mind. I also thought that it was beautifully written. Books that are written in this style are normally difficult for me to relate to and like but I found that it was not the case with this one. I don't think I would have liked this book as much if it had been written in any other way. I loved Ramona. She was a great narrator. I loved being in her head for the two days I was reading this novel. She was completely honest in her thoughts. I truly liked her. This issues that this book deals with are so interesting and so reflective of the struggle women have to go through. Ramona is literally in a battle with her own pre-conceived notions of sexuality. She sees Rita Hayworth as an ideal and constantly sees herself as falling short. It becomes so embedded in her psyche that she begins to believe her husband is having an affair with the superstar. I think all women go through this in some form or another. I think all women should pick this book up. It really is an interesting book and makes you think.