The Liar (novel) - Book Structure

Book Structure

This book takes the reader from the protagonist’s public school days to his life as an adult: Adrian Healey is "the liar" spoken of in the title. The early chapters are not in strict chronological order, but are interlaced stories from three periods of the protagonist's life, namely, as a public school pupil, as a Cambridge student and as a "spy".

The espionage period differs from the other two in that initially it is written in italics and precedes chapters 1 to 8, but not 9 to 14. The sections in italics stop when the university narrative becomes the espionage narrative, upon Adrian's graduation. The characters are referred to by their clothes as the narrator appears objective (i.e. a spectator), but is actually omniscient, e.g. David Pearce's annoyance at Dickon Lister's ignorance of the story of Helen of Troy — starting with chapter 4, in keeping with spy games, the characters refer to each other by code names (a "tradecraft" as Adrian later calls it), in this case, the names are from the Trojan War.