If the marriage plot is an ailment, is the divorce plot the cure?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a newly divorced woman in possession of literary talents must be in want of a book contract.
The past year has yielded a barrage of autobiographical meditations on divorce. February 2024 brought two best-selling memoirs, the journalist Lyz Lenz's crudely polemical 'This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life' and the essayist Leslie Jamison's soggily uplifting 'Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story.' Next came 'All Fours,' a gorgeous riot of a novel by the artist and writer Miranda July, and 'Liars,' a sleek and irradiatingly angry fiction in fragments by the poet and novelist Sarah Manguso. As a rule, these books had similar structures. They all began with a strained marriage, hurtled toward a rupture or a reconfiguration, and ended when their female narrators gained a new sense of serenity.
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Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Unpacking the crazy twist ending of ‘We Were Liars': What really happened?
We Were Liars dropped on Prime Video June 18, and while it features gorgeous beach houses, family drama and romantic tension à la The Summer I Turned Pretty, it's the jaw-dropping twist ending that is the buzziest thing about the series. As the Season 1 ending revealed, something horrible happened to 'Liars' Gat (Shubham Maheshwari), Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Johnny (Joseph Zada) — which is why Cadence (Emily Alyn Lind), the show's narrator, had to suppress it. (Warning: Obviously, major spoilers for We Were Liars follow!) The ending won't come as a surprise to anyone who read E. Lockhart's novel of the same name, which follows the wealthy Sinclair family as they spend yet another summer on the fictional Beechwood Island. But even if you've read the novel, the story is still as heartbreaking as ever: What starts out as a summer of fun turns into the ultimate tragedy … with a supernatural twist. When the series begins, Cadence, the eldest grandchild of the Sinclair family, is crushing on family friend Gat — a relationship that finally blooms during her 16th summer on Beechwood. She, Gat and her cousins Johnny and Mirren — nicknamed the 'Liars' by their family — initially enjoy weeks of summer fun. However, when Cadence's grandmother Tipper (Wendy Crewson) dies, things shift, and tensions over inheritance emerge between the parents and the powerful, wealthy grandfather Harris (David Morse). The following year, which the show toggles back and forth between, reveals that something mysterious and terrible happened to the family in the final weeks of the previous summer. Cadence was in a some sort of accident at the end of her 16th summer that she can't remember, and none of the other Liars, nor her other family members, will tell her what happened. In fact, they didn't even visit her in the hospital — something they apologize for when she comes to spend the summer on Beechwood again. Cadence is desperate to learn what happened to her, despite everyone warning her that she doesn't want to know. Even Cadence's own mind seems to be hiding the truth: Every time Cadence gets close to finding out what happened, she's hit with a migraine or worse, which is why her mother Penny (Caitlin FitzGerald) forbids her from seeking answers. But as the summer progresses, memories surface, and Cadence starts to recall events from the previously forgotten summer. After a season of red herrings and wrong turns, Cadence's memories finally patch together, revealing what happened to her — and why. Over the course of her 16th summer, Cadence saw her mother, Penny, as well as her aunts Bess (Candice King) and Carrie (Mamie Gummer) fight for their father's affection — and, ultimately, money, as each woman had squandered their trust fund over the years and needed financial help. Seeing how the women fought over the heirlooms Harris dangled over their heads, the Liars decided to do something to end the squabbling. Cadence, who spent the season checking her privilege after deepening her relationship with Gat, came up with a plan. One night, while the Liars were alone on the island, they decided to burn down Harris's mansion, Clairmont. Their hope was that destroying Clairmont would force their mothers to see that family — not things —is what's most important. And since it was only the Liars on the island, they thought they could get away with arson without anyone getting hurt. Cadence led the charge to burn down Clairmont. While the Liars had a plan, they didn't foresee the things that would keep them tied up in the house — like getting distracted by the very same objects that their mothers were fighting over. Cadence, for example, went back for her deceased grandmother's pearls — something she feels terribly guilty about and struggles to even explain. While Cadence was able to get out of the house in time after the fire started, she didn't realize that the family's golden retrievers were stuck in the laundry room. Cadence desperately tried to get the dogs out, burning her hand in the process — but it was too late. Cadence ran out onto the beach towards the ocean. Then, an explosion: Clairmont's gas line caught fire, destroying the house in one boom. Tragically, Gat, Mirren and Johnny — as well as the dogs — were still inside. In the season finale, Cadence realizes that Gat, Mirren and Johnny are dead. While she was having conversations with them over the summer, no one else in the family could see them, and via flashbacks, it's shown that they never truly interacted with anyone other than Cadence over the course of the summer. Cadence gets to say goodbye to each of the Liars, who are regretful over the choice they made to destroy Clairmont — even as her grandfather used his power and privilege to ensure that she and the other Liars would never be blamed for the fire. But while Cadence is sorry for the way she went about dismantling the toxic family structure, it's clear that burning down Clairmont achieve some of what the Liars hoped for: Their mothers are now on the same team again, and Cadence is able to stand up to her powerful grandfather for the first time ever. The season finale initially leaves it open to interpretation if the Liars are ghosts or just figments of Cadence's mind until the last moments of the season, when Johnny appears in the kitchen with his mother, Carrie. Carrie, who isn't surprised to see Johnny, asks her son why he's still in the house, and Johnny admits that he's unable to leave — hinting that the Liars, or at the very least Johnny, are still haunting Beechwood Island. We don't know yet if We Were Liars will be renewed. But if the source material is any indication, a Season 2 would likely follow Cadence's story in yet another direction: into the past. Lockhart's 2022 novel, Family of Liars, is a prequel that explores the moms' backstory. Co-creator Julie Plec previously told Deadline that the Season 1 finale could 'set the stage for Season 2, which theoretically is going to take us deeper into the moms' lives as well and add another generation to the story.' Season 1 already hinted at a well of secrets for the Sinclair women, including the fact that there was a fourth sister who died during their childhood. In the finale, Bess muses that what happened to Mirren and Johnny could be punishment for what happened all those years ago. It's entirely possible that this mystery will unfold next on We Were Liars — as the ghosts of the past, literal and figurative, come back to haunt Beechwood.
Time Magazine
18 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Breaking Down the Harrowing Twist Ending of Prime Video's We Were Liars TV Adaptation
Warning: This post contains major spoilers for We Were Liars. If you've ever scrolled through BookTok, you may have been served a video—or, perhaps several—about E. Lockhart's We Were Liars. Although the young-adult novel was a best-seller when it was published in 2014, it had a significant resurgence in popularity when BookTok began to really gain traction during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The corresponding hashtag for the title has since racked up over 21,000 posts. Now, an eight-episode TV adaptation of the novel from showrunners Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and Carina Adly Mackenzie (Roswell, New Mexico) has arrived on Prime Video just in time for the summer binge-watching season. Part teen romance, part family drama, part psychological thriller, We Were Liars centers on Cadence Sinclair Eastman (played by Emily Alyn Lind), the eldest grandchild of Harris Sinclair (David Morse), the uber wealthy patriarch of the illustrious Sinclair family. The Sinclairs are practically American royalty and spend their summers vacationing on the fictional New England private island of Beechwood, just off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Harris and his wife, Tipper (Wendy Crewson), have three grown daughters, Carrie (Mamie Gummer), Cadence's mother Penny (Caitlin FitzGerald), and Bess (Candice King), who all bring their own children to Beechwood each year. So, during the summer months, Cadence spends the majority of her time with the three other so-called Liars, the family's nickname for the group of four older kids who are all around the same age. In addition to Cadence, there's Carrie's son Johnny (Joseph Zada), Bess' daughter Mirren (Esther McGregor), and Gat (Shubham Maheshwari), the nephew of Carrie's longtime boyfriend Ed (Rahul Kohli). The Liars have grown up together, with Gat joining the annual pilgrimage to Beechwood for the first time the summer Cadence was 8 years old—or, as she refers to it, Summer 8. Cadence has always viewed her idyllic summers on Beechwood as something out of a fairytale. But everything changes during Summer 16, when Cadence and Gat realize they're in love with one another, Tipper's death brings the Sinclairs' long-simmering resentments bubbling to the surface, and the season ends with a tragedy that leaves Cadence with a serious head injury, chronic migraines, and selective amnesia. Desperate to remember the events that led to her washing up on the beach with brain trauma, Cadence returns to Beechwood for Summer 17 determined to make sense of what actually happened that fateful night. But when she arrives on the island, she discovers her mother—per the doctor's advice—has made everyone promise to let Cadence figure things out in her own time. The TV series largely follows the overall trajectory of the novel, but changes some details along the way—and adds one new, final twist. Though in terms of shock value, that one is nothing compared to the story's main, big reveal, which plays out in the show's finale. What is the big twist in We Were Liars? After spending the majority of Summer 17 trying to piece together her memories of the previous summer, Cadence finally comes to the realization that the reason her grandfather's mansion, Clairmont, has been totally rebuilt is because she and the other Liars burned it down. The teens made this decision because they saw the home as a symbol of everything that was wrong with their ultra-privileged family and thought it would put an end to their moms' constant bickering amongst themselves and with Harris over the family's money and inheritances. The plan was for each of the cousins to set a different floor of the mansion on fire before all escaping the house and meeting at the dock, where Gat would be waiting with the family's boat. But, naturally, things quickly went awry. After setting the ground floor ablaze, Cadence made it outside only to hear the family's two dogs, who had been locked in a downstairs room earlier that evening to keep them calm during dinner, yelping for help. She ran back inside to try to free them, but the fire had already grown too strong and she was forced to abandon them or die in the rescue attempt. When Cadence finally made it to the beach, she saw that none of the other Liars were on the dock and quickly realized something was wrong. However, it was at that moment that the gas main exploded and Cadence was knocked out and thrown into the water. Unfortunately, once Summer 17 Cadence remembers that part of the story, she realizes all of the other Liars were killed in the fire, as Johnny and Mirren were trapped on the higher floors and Gat had run into the house to try to save Cadence when she hadn't made it to the dock by the stroke of midnight. So while Cadence thinks she has been spending time with the Liars all of Summer 17, it's really just been her brain conjuring their spirits as a trauma response. Or perhaps, actual ghosts. It's somewhat unclear. Cadence later tells ghost Gat she feels responsible for his death because the reason she was delayed leaving the house the first time around was because she stopped to retrieve Tipper's infamous black pearl necklace, which had long been a source of conflict for the family. It was during that delay that Gat ran inside to try to rescue her. However, he says he doesn't blame her and tells her they all made mistakes. When a fully-aware Cadence finally has a conversation with Harris, he reveals that while the rest of the world believes the fire was caused by faulty wiring, he knows the truth. However, he tells her he's planning to give his last significant interview—coincidentally, for a TIME Magazine cover story—to put an end to the chatter about a family curse, and he wants to name her his heir before he retires from public life. But she will have to maintain the lie in order for him to do so. In the end, Cadence decides to strike out on her own without her grandfather's money or help, telling the reporter that she's "just really not into fairytales anymore." What is the new twist in the show? The new twist comes in when Carrie returns to her house on Beechwood, Red Gate, and we find out that not only has she broken her sobriety after many years, but she has also been interacting with her son Johnny's ghost over the course of Summer 17. She tells him that she thought he had left and he simply replies, "I don't think I can." Given that, back in 2022, Plec's My So-Called Company and Universal Television acquired the rights to both We Were Liars and Lockhart's prequel novel, Family of Liars —which centers on 17-year-old Carrie's life on Beechwood—it seems like this cliffhanger may be setting us up for a Season 2 that will delve into the Sinclair family's past. But we're just going to have to wait and see.
Hamilton Spectator
20 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Leslie Jamison wins Writers' Trust award for international non-fiction author
American author and essayist Leslie Jamison has won this year's $75,000 Weston International Award. The prize, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada, recognizes the career achievement of a non-fiction writer from outside of Canada. Jurors praise Jamison's 'mastery of language' and say she brings rigorous scholarship to writing about her most intimate thoughts. Jamison's non-fiction work includes the essay collections 'The Empathy Exams' and 'Make It Scream, Make It Burn' and the memoirs 'The Recovering' and 'Splinters.' She also teaches at Columbia University, where she directs the non-fiction Masters of Fine Arts program. The Writers' Trust plans to host an on-stage interview with Jamison at the Royal Ontario Museum in September. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2025.
