Billy Liar [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Keith Waterhouse (Author), Linus Roache (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1997

This series aims to offer quality literature which is accessible to young readers in the 11-16 age group. It deals with key issues in a multicultural world and aims to provide stimulating material reflecting male and female interests. It is intended for class use and for GCSE examination and coursework, encouraging pupils to examine the different ways of looking at the text and to express their personal views using supporting evidence from the text. Suggestions for writing are included which give pupils an opportunity to respond to what they have read through imaginative writing, dramatic reconstructions as well as the traditional critical essay. This book by Keith Waterhouse features Billy Liar, for whom life is full of problems. He dreams of glory and success which contrasts sharply with the drabness of life in a northern town in the early 1960s.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Koch International (January 27, 1997)
• ISBN-10: 1840070056
• ISBN-13: 978-1840070057
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,753,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Boy Hiding in Disguises, May 6, 2004

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Billy Liar (Paperback)

Still fresh after 45 years, Waterhouse's novel about a compulsive liar who can't handle reality is funny, sweet, and heartbreakingly sad. Set at the tail end of 1950s, the story is told by Billy Fisher, who lives with his parents in the fictional Yorkshire town of Stradhoughton. Billy can't cope with his tedious clerking job at a local funeral parlor, living at home, or really anything about his life, and so, spends a great deal of time escaping into fantasy world in his head called Ambrosia. When he's not imagining life as prime minister of his make-believe country, he's spinning mostly purposeless lies to almost everyone he meets. Sometimes he's lying to cover up real misdeeds, such as his smalltime embezzling, other times, his lies are completely pointless, such as telling a friend's mother about his fictional sister.

At first, his carefree, devil-may-care insouciance is amusing and the reader is drawn into Billy's bizarre self-vision as lively raconteur and comic wit. However, as the story progresses, he becomes a more troublesome figure. He's engaged to two different girls, and apparently in love with a third. More problematically, he has no emotional connection to realityóevery episode in his life takes on the aspect of a sketch or scene in which he struggles to determine what role to play, what accent to adopt, or what pose to strike. It becomes heartbreaking to witness Billy's belief that he's smarter than everyone around him and destined for great things, when everyone else can see right through his poses and tired routines. (It'd be interesting to know what a psychiatrist's diagnosis of Billy would be.) As the lies pile up, Billy finds himself painted into a corner from which only drastic action will free him. His only avenue of escape is to actually pursue his longstanding claim of a job offer in London writing scripts for a standup comic. The reader is torn between wanting Billy to stay and face up to his misdeeds, and wanting him to get on that train to the Big Smoke and realize his dreams. Of course, the outcome is inevitable.

Waterhouse grew up in Leeds, and like Billy, worked as a clerk in an undertakers. The prose is liberally sprinkled with Yorkshire dialect, and does a brilliant job of capturing the small town atmosphere, from the grubby disco, to the local cafe, and claustrophobic house. The book was turned into a play the year after publication and into an excellent film several years later, a TV miniseries in the early 1970s, and an insipid American TV series called Billy. A sequel called Billy Liar on The Moon appeared in 1977, and more recently there are allegedly plans for an American feature film remake, although I'm not sure who thought that would be a good idea..