02/20/2017
This beautifully rendered, emotionally intense, and chronologically scattered reminiscence essentially questions the veracity of all autobiography. In her English-language debut, Goblet, an acclaimed comics pioneer in her native Belgium, juxtaposes her relationships with her alcoholic blowhard father, her distant partner, her abusive mother, and her combative daughter in a kaleidoscope of relationships turned into tugs-of-war. (In a short afterword, Goblet’s partner, Guy Marc Hinant, gets to the heart of this supposedly autobiographical work, suggesting that his own appearance in Goblet’s book does not constitute an actual appearance by him, but by an “avatar” that inhabits Goblet’s fictionalized truth.) Goblet changes her art style throughout—sometimes employing almost amateurish line scrawls, other times rich, mysterious, hazy color washes, and just about any style in between—to create a vivid and puzzling representation of emotional memory and the ways the brain retells stories to yourself in order to help you bear them. (Feb.)
"Here's a terrific example of the current wave of great comics from Europe. Dominique Goblet's approach is postmodern, with a scruffy, anything-goes mix of styles and moods, but it's marked everywhere by her forays into photography. She intersperses her tale – an autobiographical account of family, a lover, truth, lies and brutality – with images that look like photos." —Etelka Lehoczky, NPR Book Concierge, "2017's Great Reads"
“It is a rare gift to come across a book as tender, affecting and complete as Pretending is Lying.” — Sheila Heti, The New York Times Book Review
“This beautifully rendered, emotionally intense, and chronologically scattered reminiscence essentially questions the veracity of all autobiography.” —Publishers Weekly
"Primarily pencil-sketched, Goblet’s art is unbridled and alternately busy and peaceful. She uses lettering to great effect, too, expressing mood, feeling, and, in her father’s case, drunkenness with the appearance of the text. Some pages feature only vague, dimly lit shapes, as if there are ghosts hovering on the periphery of Goblet’s relationships, her memoir’s primary subject. This is an imaginative, nonlinear rendering of an artist’s life so far.” —Booklist
"A touchstone work of comics autobiography, from one of the genre’s key innovators, is finally translated, complete with expressive lettering newly handcrafted by the artist.” —Sean Rogers, Globe and Mail
"Pretending Is Lying is a perceptive and poignant contribution to the fields of both experimental comics and graphic autobiography, and well worth the read.” — Hans Rollman, Pop Matters
"Combining paint, ink, charcoal, and pencil, Goblet's mixed-media pages feel wet, textured, bleeding…. [Pretending is Lying is] part of a rich tradition of international graphic memoirs from Art Spiegelman’s Maus to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis to Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future...We're invited to peer into the artist's mind.... It is a privilege to serve as [her] confidante, if only for a while…" — Chantal McStay, BOMB
“Dominique Goblet spent twelve years putting parts of her life to rest—explicit snippets and fragments that condense her entire childhood and sketch a tender portrait of the adult she is today...Goblet hides nothing. And she forgives, weaving together, in gray and black and on yellowing paper, with strokes of her brush, a shocking kind of autobiography.” —L’Express
“Precise and poetic, perceptive and unflinching, Dominique Goblet’s comics cannot lie.” —Bill Kartalopoulos, series editor, The Best American Comics
“One of the most beautiful and successful books to be published by L’Association.” —du9
“Faire semblant c’est mentir raises interesting and upsetting questions about our relationships with our loved ones and the way in which we build those relationships.” —Actua BD
