Little Liar

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child death, sexual violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, animal death, sexual content, and cursing.

In Little Liar, author Leigh Rivers delves into how past trauma shapes behavior for years after the fact. In a sequence that illustrates this theme, Malachi suddenly seizes Olivia’s throat in anger because she turned off the lights on him. Malachi signs that he is furious at Olivia because she “silenced” him by cloaking his sign language in darkness. The novel does not justify Malachi’s exaggerated, violent response but suggests that it can be understood in the context of childhood events, such as Malachi’s mother locking him in his room and asking him to be silent for weeks and his inability to form words as he watches his mother and Rex die. These events—all involving a forced or involuntary silence—cause Malachi to develop a complex response to being rendered voiceless. Interpreting any attempt to silence him as a vicious attack on his person, Malachi erupts in defensive anger. The novel uses several such intersections between Malachi’s past trauma and his present behavior to illustrate how traumatic events continue to resonate throughout a person’s life while also offering hope that the trauma can be overcome.

The novel emphasizes the ripple effect of past trauma not only to provide depth to its characters but also to emphasize that they are not evil or corrupted but, rather, shaped by their circumstances. Malachi’s spell in prison further traumatizes him, trapping and silencing him in an echo of what he endured in childhood. The impact of his time in prison is illustrated through his increasingly violent behavior after release. It is also shown through his increasing withdrawal from reality in the second half of the book. He is unable to sleep and often still holds conversations with his imaginary version of Olivia; she notes that Malachi is “sometimes here, but (sometimes) he’s not” (209). However, the novel offers the context of his past trauma to indicate that Malachi is redeemable despite his violent acts. Olivia suggests as much to Jennifer when she says that he deserves help with his mental health rather than incarceration. Rather than dismiss characters for their behaviors, the text suggests that understanding and empathy can lead to healing and growth. By the end of the novel, Malachi is confronting the lasting effects of trauma on his life through therapy and medication, offering an example of how trauma can be dealt with and overcome, even years after it occurred.

Since the novel is told largely from Malachi’s perspective, the impact of trauma on his personality and behavior is more fully evident; however, Olivia is also impacted by the traumatic events of her past. Her refusal to let go of Malachi parallels her refusal to abandon the baby brother who died in her arms. Olivia’s past also affects her relationship with her parents, Jennifer and Jamieson. She feels indebted to them for saving her from a horrific childhood, resulting in an inability to assert her boundaries, something she struggles with in her relationship with Malachi as well. Her desire to please Jennifer, Jamieson, and Malachi despite their treatment of her can be read as fear of abandonment since her biological parents left her and her brother to starve. Over the course of the novel, however, Olivia confronts her abandonment issues and works to assert boundaries with her family, highlighting another example of how trauma can shape identity and behavior while also arguing that with work, healing, and growth, it can be overcome.