Keith Waterhouse (1929–2009)

I’m over the moon that I held onto this book after first reading it forty odd years ago.
William Fisher is in a bit of a pickle. Wife Jeanette wants a baby and a new Mayfield Mortgagedene bungalow. Insatiable and unpredictable mistress Helen is veering out of control. The back-stabbing shenanigans in the Information and Publicity Department of Shepford Town Council are hitting new heights. The imminent annual festival needs fine-tuning and the deadline for Pageantry with Progress (new show more edition) looms. Throw in Mr Pussy Paws, a missing set of second-hand golf clubs, Oscar on repeat and rat-faces galore. What could possibly go wrong?
Billy Liar on the Moon is funny and farcical, clever and current - swindle sheets, corruption and town planning madness aren’t going anywhere soon. All the characters and situations are brilliantly described and Bill is an absolute legend. Cheers! Mine’s a large vodka martini (on expenses). show less

After two pages, I said to Jim, "Oh, he's OCD". Not the guts of the story, but a complicating factor. It's England in the hinterlands, in 1959, and Billy, 19, is struggling in a job he detests, a social life he can't cope with, a depressed economy and a depressing family, but he can't seem to get out. His every action and inaction lead to more complications, with his employer, with women, with family. Some of it is very funny (I'm sure it reads well on audio), but the cage is closing in on show more him and he knows it. How will he escape?

Very nicely written, with some terrific sentences and images:

the fat women rolling along on their bad feet like toy clowns in pudding basins

or Frowning women, their black, scratched handbags crammed with half-digested grievances..

or I was amazed and intrigued that they should all be content to be nobody but themselves.

In all, a vivid portrait of that part of England in that year between the war and the artistic explosion of the 60s, as well as that of a young man adrift. show less

Billy Fisher is a 19-year-old suffocating in a small fictional Yorkshire town and this book covers one day in his life. Billy works as an undertaker's clerk, is nagged by his mother and shouted at by his father, is engaged to two girls but is in love with a third and dreams of becoming a hit comedy writer. Feeling trapped by the monotony of his everyday life Billy frequently disappears into a world of daydreams and lies. Inevitably, Billy's compulsive lies begin to catch up with him.

'Billy show more Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film.

I found this a quick, warm and pleasant read filled with a subtle British humour which although it didn't actually make me laugh out loud, I did read it with a smile. Billy is an interesting character, a lively storyteller with an unmistakably northern humour but like all the best comedy, the book's tragedy rings true with a much wider audience that still resonates today. show less

A quintessentially British tale of a smalltown dreamer who never plucks up the coverage to follow his vaultingly ambitious dreams, living in a fantasy world while he sabotages his normal life. In other words something I could really relate to. Billy's engaging, although his fine words (and the reader's sympathies) are undercut by his lies and other actions. Still relevant nearly fifty years on.