The new psychological thriller Faculty of Liars by RL Heber takes a close-in view of the world of a small, but prestigious New England university from the point of view of its new president’s wife. From the outset, you know she’s fallen prey to the cliché expressed by Edward Albee in his play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: “Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.” Because Elizabeth Harker has been having a torrid year-long affair with the facilities manager of the university’s medical school. In fact, she’s in bed with him when she receives the text message that her husband Jeff has been named the university’s next president.
Being thrust into the role of president’s wife means Elizabeth on constant display. She has galas and events to plan, she has speeches to give, she has a leading role as loyal, adoring wife. But during the heady weeks following Jeff Harker’s promotion, her mind is on her love and the sexual awakening he has guided her to. It’s as if the entire book were a long love-letter to him, whom she refers to as ‘you’ in the narration rather than by name.
For me, this became a little confusing, because when Elizabeth is in a conversation with other people and refers to ‘you,’ I have to remember that she is not addressing a person in the room, but her absent lover. I don’t think you even find out his name until the very end of the book. John. Unfortunately for her, John is soon completely absent. On the afternoon of Jeff’s inauguration, just moments before Elizabeth has to give a speech, he is murdered and the campus descends into a frenzy of precautions.
Leading up to the inauguration, Elizabeth has been obsessed with keeping her affair quiet, and had determined it would have to come to an end. She has too much to lose. Her position, Jeff’s position, too, maybe, and the plans he has for the medical school, the attention she’s receiving as the president’s wife and the vague promise Jeff dangles in front of her that they should keep trying to have children and, meanwhile, look into the possibility of adoption.
In this social media, cameras-everywhere age, rumours inevitably begin to circulate, but the university’s trusty communications head, Abraham Cohen, is there to squelch them and give Elizabeth pep talks about holding her head up. As does the wife of Jeff’s predecessor, as does the school’s major donor and governing board chair.
The police have access to the dead man’s phone and harbour suspicions more serious than the rumours. After long internal debate, she tells them the truth. She has to. On her phone is a message from John recorded at the moment he was murdered. She cannot keep that evidence to herself.
Elizabeth, still trying to hold her head up, learns bit by bit that her love had some pretty significant secrets that call the basis of their relationship into question. His promises of total honesty were as empty as a burst balloon. And, as time goes on, she learns he wasn’t the only one hiding information from her. Her husband, Abraham, everyone she hopes she can trust is keeping her in the dark and trying to manipulate her.
Yet, despite revelations, despite betrayals, despite everything, she still addresses almost every thought to John. For me, it was exhausting to be that close in to the narrator’s mind, to go around and around the facts and rumours and arguments inside her head, while marvelling that her attention is on this one particular concern when so many others should be more salient for her.
Although the story takes place on a college campus, it focuses on people at the highest administrative levels, so you don’t get a feel for student life, classrooms, libraries and laboratories. That is, except for the fact that a product of those laboratories is sometimes a major medical advance, and the people involved in the medical school’s planned Wickham Wing believe they are on the cusp of one of those – an advance so profound it will revolutionise patient care and, possibly, make them all rich.
You can recognise the characters’ desire for professional advancement and financial gain, but in general I found them and their conversations disappointingly unrealistic, while Elizabeth’s obsession with John made her a not very sympathetic character.
If you like dark academia mysteries, try Marked for Death by RO Thorp or This is How We End Things by RJ Jacobs.
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£9.45
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
