Lie with Me (novel)

Lie with Me (Arrête avec tes mensonges) is a novel by French writer Philippe Besson. It was published in 2017 to critical acclaim, and became a bestseller in France. It was translated into English by Molly Ringwald under the title Lie with Me and was lauded by English-language reviewers.

Plot
Set in 1984 in the rural French town of Barbezieux, the novel recounts the teenage love affair between the narrator and his schoolmate, Thomas Andrieu.

Writing
Besson, in a piece published in January 2020, noted the influence of The Lover by Marguerite Duras onto Lie with Me: When I threw myself into writing Lie with Me, I placed [The Lover] in front of me. I knew I was going to write about my seventeen-year-old self, about what happened the year I turned seventeen, and I have never forgotten that was the year I read The Lover. I understood that I was going to call forth my memories, that I was going to write about the memory of adolescence, like Duras.

Reception
The novel became a bestseller in France. The novel won the Prix Psychologies du Roman inspiran and the Prix Maison de la Presse. The novel was a finalist for the Prix Orange du Livre.

The novel was adapted into a film of the same name, which premiered at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival on 27 August 2022. It was also adapted into a play performed in January 2023 at the Théâtre de la Tempête in Paris.