The questions children ask x the lies we tell ourselves: In conversation with Sarah Manguso

In this episode I have the pleasure of speaking with one of my favorite authors: Sarah Manguso. Her critically acclaimed 2024 novel, "Liars," was a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It's a novel that explores the collapse of a marriage from the perspective of Jane - a wife, mother, and an artist. We have a conversation about "Liars," particularly Sarah's views on motherhood & marriage in the second half of this episode.

The first half of our discussion centres on her latest book, "Questions Without Answers," a book of philosophy written in collaboration with hundreds of children and illustrated by the award winning New Yorker cartoonist, Liana Finck. It consists of one-line questions - ranging from the delightful and hilarious, to the poignant and poetic - asked by young children, which Sarah collected over the years after putting a call out on social media in 2021 asking parents and care-givers: What's the best question a kid ever asked you?

As a society we seldom take children seriously, viewing them as incomplete, incompetent, adults-in-progress. In writing this book, Sarah wanted to challenge the popular description of children as "adorable idiots," and instead portray them as they are: insightful, inventive, intelligent, curious, kind, funny, and - yes - even philosophical.