Liars Called

There is nothing inherently wrong with unlikable narrators, as their problematic personality can very well add to the narrative, being tied to its themes and discussions in an engaging way. Liars Called’s despicable narrator, however, only subtracts from the experience: if at first, the protagonist’s self-centered attitude seems to be a perfect fit for an allegory for predatory capitalism, his lack of development throughout the story ends up making him just unbearable.

This repulsive narrator is a young man, phallically named Lance Hawthorn Underwood, who is one day invited to go inside a magical bus by three – the book is full of threes – terrifying stewardesses. When he returns home from the surreal trip, Lance discovers that everything in his world has changed: orc-like creatures now prowl the streets, malls have turned into dungeons, and people’s appearances have changed to reflect marked traits of their personality.

The novel is narrated in the first person, but Lance soon proves to be the wrong man for the job. One of the main issues is that he doesn’t care about the fantastical universe around him, being vague and obtuse about its elements. The great Hydra is, for a long time, referred to as just a creature with three heads that could be “a multi-headed dragon or similar”: a poor description that never comes close to building tension or excitement for the encounter with the mythological monster. Lance’s narration is purposefully detached (“Like so many other events, part of this is me simply portraying the past as it happened while not letting my emotions cloud things“), so this numbs the action and makes this strange world feel lifeless.

We soon realize that the world shares many characteristics with RPGs, as there are dungeons, bosses, classes, abilities, and experience points. Lance, however, was never into games – a fact that he repeats often, almost as if it’s a point of pride – and, because of that, the novel is rife with moments where the protagonist makes “big discoveries” about how the most basic things work: “Rogue must have been tied to the stealth abilities. I had never played role-playing games and only knew about them from other people talking. I inferred that games let people use abilities to be invisible to enemies, which was in line with our current situation.” It’s not exactly riveting, you must agree.

Besides that, Lance is also a really bad human being: he’s a sexist, self-centered, sadistic white man who lacks empathy – basically the baseline of modern CEOs. There are several moments in which his words reveal how fragile his male ego is, especially when he’s creating a power fantasy for himself: “I stepped closer, entranced. Her husband was dead, which meant she was mine, by her own admission. She wanted a real man. I’d be one for her.” “Jesus Christ,” you just said. Yes, I could hear you from here.

Lance thinks he is a “real man”, as opposed to what he was once called in school (“Little Dick”), and he’s always ready to prove that to women, of course: “After a pause, I said, ‘It’s Lance.’ That would be the only name I’d use with these people. Little Dick was not acceptable and ran contrary to what I’d been told by prior girlfriends.” Good for you, man. Then again, maybe they were lying to you. You know, just a thought.

Lance frequently wants to remind us that he’s got a big dick (you’re probably laughing right now), which is a simple fact that, for him, obviously also means he’s automatically great in bed. Your laughing has just intensified, but hear this out: the story often corroborates this claim, especially by the end, when he has sex with an ex-girlfriend.

In the scene, his ego is again exposed in all its glory: “Callisto had been one of my first girlfriends and there were a lot of memories bound up in that. I’d show her exactly what she gave up.” You may already think this paints a bad picture for Lance, but the context makes things even worse for him, as it is hinted that Callisto has no say in the matter of having sex with him, since she is being ordered to do so by her leader. That, however, doesn’t stop Lance from showing her “exactly what she gave up,” making her sorry for dumping him and his big, big dick. He even ignores her completely before the sex, with his mind clouded by lust, anticipating the rape to come: “Honestly, I hadn’t been paying attention to a word to come out of her mouth. Instead, a long list of positions to explore played through my mind.”

Great guy. And then we properly get to the sex scene, which perfectly encapsulates all the sexism in the novel:

“She stopped after a moment and grabbed my hands. ‘Will you love me?’ Love was impossible. I wasn’t a creature who felt that way about anyone. Lust, certainly, the burning need to feel her body arch in pleasure against mine. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I will make you cry out in pleasure. Again, and again.’ ‘You only want to have sex with me?’ Another easy question. ‘I can’t think of anything else. Not right now. I promise to make sure you enjoy every moment of it.’ And I did. We went three rounds. I felt well enough to go four, or five.”

Of course, Lance would claim that he made her “enjoy every moment of it”: he is so self-centered, so sure of himself, and so selfish, that he would never think otherwise. If these sentences are on him, the whole “will you love me” problem, however, is not. Here, the cliché of “women care about love, while men want to have sex” is not built by the protagonist’s perspective, but is framed as part of the story. It’s not something that is tainted by Lance’s deranged point of view, but something that really happened: that poor woman really asked that. A few sentences later, and we now have the complete package when Callisto asks him for help: “I need you to protect me.” Yeah…

You see, the male power fantasy here is not just a product of Lance’s point of view anymore; it’s in the narrative regardless. That’s why it corroborates most of his ridiculous claims: Liars Called is a disturbing male power fantasy through and through.

Lance’s problematic traits don’t stop at rape either. No, he’s also sadistic, feeling pleasure in killing those weaker than him: “More creatures died. I stepped on one’s head, kicked another, and beat a third into submission. Each one made me happier.” He generally shows no signs of empathy toward others and starts to refer to some women – of course – as whores after being offered them (“‘You’re right. Bonkers with a knife. It’s grand,’ she said to Theo, loudly enough that even the whore next door paused her encouraging theatrics”). When he saves some of them from being raped, he immediately calls attention to his own heroic deed while smiling at them: “‘You’re welcome,’ I said to the ladies while smiling happily.” If you saw Lance on the street now, you would probably punch him in the face until he has lost all his teeth and, let’s be honest here, damn everyone who would try to stop you.

Lance is the kind of person that is simply “bothered” by slavery, too: “That was the deal I’d made with Coach Madison, but I detested his very existence if he was really enslaving people. That practice bothered me.” And the list could go on. This even makes some narrative decisions feel more troubling than they would be otherwise: Lance can shapeshift to a form that is defined by its uncontrollable lust, and the sign that is often used to distinguish it from the others is… its brown skin. Yeah, not just a coincidence anymore.

The narrative does acknowledge that Lance is a terrible human being – he’s often called a murderer – but that doesn’t change the fact that being stuck with this kind of narrator – without any sort of trade-off – is quite unbearable. He doesn’t help to develop the world; he’s shallow, dumb, repetitive, and, on top of everything, he’s also a terrible human being: truly having the makings of the CEOs of our time.

The story is clearly a commentary on the predatory state of contemporary capitalism. The evil-looking stewardesses that lure people to enter their magical world use money as a fishhook: “The chance at a lifetime! Money for everyone, free to spend for great items,” and people are even rewarded when others are killed: “I glanced down at the card in my hand. The total dollar amount on my card had increased. It almost struck me as odd that watching a person die earned me money” with “almost” being the keyword here to define the protagonist’s personality.

Lance’s new world is one of survival: this post-apocalyptic, monster-infested place justifies people’s predatory behavior. There is no one he can trust, and no one should trust him. It’s every man for himself – and all the “whores” for the strongest of them with the biggest dick.

Lance is always there to show how petty, self-centered, and downright evil people can be: “Thinking on the horrible exchanges of parents selling their children, or parents falling behind, or those who were abandoned by exiting caretakers, each instance somehow helped me keep going. Every person who died meant I had survived.” And the novel is very clear in its purpose of being read allegorically: “This place didn’t operate on love or trust. It ran on fear and control. The sensible part of me of a few weeks ago felt disgusted at such a situation. We had turned America into a third world country run by dictators with wide smiles.”

Liars Called, however, only works when it’s veering into pure nonsense – although even then it’s quite repetitive. The first time a vending machine appears, for example, it can be funny because the scene is absurd: “A few vending machines had been spotted, but their positions changed when no one was looking. They probably ate people who shook them.” But then the narrative oversells them: Lance keeps bringing the vending machines up and thinking about how strange they are and, so, by the end of the book, every mention of them will probably be met more with an eye-roll than with laughter.

Another problem is that the secondary characters are all flat. I bet you are as surprised as a Pikachu to hear that. Arson, for example, is defined by his trait of being unable to hear things correctly. Little Shade is defined by her tendency to be… shady, and so on. Coach Madison is the one-dimensional brute of a villain, which means he is just a cruder version of Lance. The only character who shows any sign of being complex is Lance’s father, mainly because he doesn’t act like the protagonist thinks he should, mixing politeness with an air of danger, although he never gets much room to be developed.

The novel also ends without a proper climax and, if it’s filled with action scenes, it’s hard to find them exciting when the protagonist is describing a Hydra as just “a multi-headed dragon or similar.” But truth be told, the reader will probably be cheering for the Hydra, anyway. Go show Little Dick who is really big, my girl.

There is little plot to speak of, too. Lance finds himself in this magical version of the world, and he’s just trying to survive. There’s no villain to battle at the end, no big twist or revelation. There’s little sign of character growth either: Lance starts as an asshole and ends an asshole. Like most CEOs, there’s no redemption arc. It’s realistic, at least.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with unlikable narrators. They don’t need to be morally judged by the story, or have a redeeming journey or quality to work. But they need, at least, to be engaging in some way or another; alongside “rogue”, “engaging” is also missing from Lance’s vocabulary. He’s utterly despicable, and that’s the end of it.

Liars Called misses the point of unlikable narrators, then. They’re not supposed to be fully unbearable and, at the same time, narratively rote. There must be something about them – narrative-wise – to make them worth it. But there’s not a single fascinating element to be found in Liars Called: I’ve had kidney stones that were more enjoyable than reading this book.

July 10, 2026.

Review originally published on August 25, 2019.