As Lie Is to Grin: A Novel

By Simeon Marsalis

In the vein of Teju Cole, Percival Everett and James Hannaham, Simeon Marsalis is an important, young new literary voice; this debut is timely, self-aware, and brilliantly prismatic.

By deftly juxtaposing universally relatable experiences with those unique to the narrator, Marsalis illustrates the complications of reckoning with the realities of racial difference, institutional racism, and casual bigotry, as well as the way silence can become a self-destructive habit.

The novel questions the notions of identity and authenticity; the central lie of the narrative is motivated by the narrator David's anxieties and struggles with his own identity and will feel familiar to anyone who has felt general anxiety around the college experience and the weight of other people's perceptions.

Set on the campus of the University of Vermont, As Lie is to Grin is a smart investigation into insiders and outsiders, and into the complicated cultural history even the most progressive American institutions struggle to acknowledge.

Marsalis deftly weaves temporal and contextual details to evoke a sense of place that is both grounded and alive, current and rooted in historical context.

Marsalis will be just 27-years-old when the book is published. He is the son of celebrated jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, and his uncles and grandfather are also musicians.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catapult
• Release date: Oct 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781936787609

Reviews for As Lie Is to Grin

[jessiqa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

David is a freshman at University of Vermont, where he is one of the very few African American students. He struggles to figure out how he fits in as a student and as a black man. He is also missing his girlfriend from New York. The relationship was more physical than anything else, but started on the lie: he didn’t think that sounded black enough that he was from Long Island, so he lied and said he was from Harlem. Throughout the whole story, while he’s trying to decipher is place in the world, he is also remarkably focused on both American architectural design and Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer.The story is told mostly through journal entries, but also through excerpts from a novel David is working on. As the novel is based on events in his own life, we often get to see the reality as he describes it in his journal as well as the version he’d like to show the world. Sometimes it seems as though David isn’t really sure which is which. Anyone interested in coming of age stories or of reading about someone come to terms with their own reality, will enjoy this book.