This latest novel from Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Linden MacIntyre, Why Men Lie, offers a moving and emotionally complex conclusion to the Cape Breton trilogy.
 
Two years after the events of The Bishop's Man, we're introduced to Effie MacAskill Gillis, sister of the troubled priest Duncan. It's 1997, and Effie is an independent, middle-aged woman working as a tenured professor of Celtic Studies, but her complicated and often disappointing love life has left her all but ready to give up on the opposite sex. Then suddenly, a chance encounter with a man on a Toronto subway platform gives Effie renewed hope. J.C. Campbell is an old friend she hasn't seen for more than 20 years - an attractive, single man who appears to possess the stability and good sense she longs for.
 
Effie met her last husband, Sextus, in her hometown of Cape Breton when the two were still children. As they grew older together, and started a family, she soon learned that when it came to other women, Sextus couldn't be trusted. After one too many betrayals, Effie leaves him behind, and so when she and J.C. seem to hit it off, his relaxed, open demeanour is a welcome change.
 
But after a happy start to their relationship, cracks begin to show, and J.C. proves himself to be just as unpredictable as the others: one evening Effie spots him in a seedy part of town, but he denies ever having left his house; when she notices a scratch below his eye, he lies about its cause, blaming it on the cat. Then J.C., a journalist, becomes unhealthily engrossed in a story involving a convict on death row, and he and Effie begin to drift apart.
 
Although he still checks in sporadically and insists there's nothing going on, she soon learns he has a deeply personal reason for his covert trips to that seedy downtown street. In fact, it turns out there's a lot about his past that Effie doesn't know, and a lot he's still learning himself.
 
While J.C. is busy chasing his own past, Effie is rarely able to escape her own. Family ties and hometown connections to Cape Breton mean her two ex-husbands - Sextus happens to be the cousin of her first husband, John - are constantly coming and going in a turbulent mess of comfort and commotion, while her grown daughter, Cassie, brings some unexpected news of her own.
 
After all of her experience in relationships with men, Effie thought she knew all she needed to about what to expect, and how to maintain her self-sufficiency. Why do men lie?, she wants to know. But whether it's for love, for protection, or for more selfish reasons, Effie soon learns that no amount of experience can prepare you for what might resurface from the past, and for the damage that might cause, emotionally or otherwise.

1. The novel begins with a passage from T.S. Eliot's collection "Four Quartets": Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past." Throughout the book, and in the very last scene, more passages from Eliot's collection are quoted. What do these passages convey about the way the past keeps affecting the present in this novel?

2. Effie, now in middle age, is feeling independent and self-sufficient. Would she be better off without J.C., or is their relationship worthwhile despite his dishonesty?

3. This book's title seems to point to a divide in gender power. Effie is focused on the men in her life who lie to her, but what effect have the women who lie in this novel had on those around them?

4. Are any of J.C.'s lies to Effie about his personal history justified?

5. After half a lifetime of disappointing and failed relationships, Effie thinks there's something different about J.C., and she takes a chance on him. What is it about J.C. that makes her think he will be different from the other men in her life?

6. When Sextus offers Effie the memoir he has written, which includes very personal details about both of their lives, she hides it away in a drawer for a long time without reading it. What do you think she's afraid of finding in that manuscript?

7. After meeting Sam, the Canadian convict on death row, J.C. becomes intent on hearing his side of the story, and allowing Sam the only form of autonomy left within his reach - the power to tell his story to the media. J.C. then tells Effie that he's working on a book about impotence. What is it about this story and this subject that captivates J.C. so completely?

8. Effie has a long history in Cape Breton, but most of her life is now lived in Toronto. Did you feel the two different settings affected her behaviour from one place to the other?

9. Paul, the man Effie meets in the coffee shop, turns out to be an unwanted presence who won't leave her alone. One day, he breaks into Effie's home and steals the unread memoir written by Sextus, but nothing else. Why do you think Paul is so obsessed with Effie, whom he barely even knows?

10. It seems like all of the men in Effie's life have disappointed her - all except for Conor, who died while they were still in a relationship. How do you think that loss impacted Effie?

11. Conor says to Effie, "Love and friendship are only temporary absences from solitude. Sunny days. You can't keep sunshine in a jar" (p. 139). Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

12. In the book's acknowledgements, Linden MacIntyre writes that growing up in a household full of women, and working with many intelligent female journalists, is what gave him the insight to write this novel from a woman's perspective. Do you think he was successful in writing from the female point of view?



This reader's guide has been prepared by Bookclub-in-a-Box, www.bookclubinabox.com