All the Ways They Lied, Aida Zilelian, Keylight Books (January 9, 2024)
Imagine being a member of a quartet that could never play in tune. In Aida Zilelian’s insightful novel set in Queens, New York, we come to know a volatile, tradition-bound, and controlling mother and her three adult daughters, each of them trying to establish their individual needs while trying to find a place at the family table together. That will give you an idea of what it is like in the Manoukian family. There are only fleeting glimpses of these four ever playing in tune.
The novel describes a real family so beautifully that you can easily feel like a member of the family. Even though each episode seems superficially to be about nothing at all, these stories will hold most everything in them. Families like the Manoukians are quickly identified as “dysfunctional,” but their worries, their miscommunications, and the ever-fraying relationships are all too recognizable, all too common. And all too familiar.
In each instance, the daughters will confront some roadblock in their lives and blame the husband, or fate, or the mother, Takouhi. Whatever the reasons, each of them comes to the table with emotional baggage they are both eager and ready to unload and yet not at all ready to unload. Add to the mix a thoughtful but absent father to the two older girls, and a thoughtful but ailing father to the youngest of the three, and it would be hard to imagine a dinner table without conflict on some level.
These are kitchen stories. They are living room stories. The daughters call up memories of their childhood while setting the table, going over a recipe, or cleaning the floors. This is their routine attempt at peaceful domesticity ever at odds with the torment felt by each of them.
Kohar, the eldest, remembers incidents growing up where her mother controlled who she could have as friends, and later opposed her moving out of the house, but to what end? Kohar believes that if she were to confront Takouhi about any of it now, her mother likely would disavow each incident either as if it had not happened or that it must be misremembered. Kohar wonders, “If you can’t even remember what you did, what was the point of it all?” And there is no clear answer.
All the Ways They Lied is exquisitely written, using thoughtful descriptive language that comes across as fresh and innovative, and clear. As the three girls examine their relationships, both with their mother and with each other, it might prompt you, the reader, to rethink your own family conflicts. Very highly recommended.