The Lies Boys Tell relates the story of Ed Reece, a dying man who convinces his middle-aged son to take him on a journey through Middle America, to end in the town where he was born. His family--his wife and children, and their spouses and children--are the primary characters in this tale, peppered with Ed's philosophical musings about life and death. I give the book three stars because on a technical level it seemed well-written enough (although nothing spectacular, as you can probably tell from the quote above), but I didn't really enjoy it. Herrin's view of small-town America is a depressing one, made up of fast-food joints and strip malls and populated by people dissatisfied with their lives. Other than Ed's inevitable death, there's little in the way of resolution at the end, and the book has so little emotional resonance that I was left indifferent. All-in-all, I found the book dreary and can't say I would recommend it to a friend, but then it's not really my sort of thing; those who like these sorts of end-of-life tales may appreciate it more than I did.
