Book Review: Society of Lies: A Novel by Lauren Ling Brown

Maya is back at Princeton for her ten-year reunion. She and her husband Nate, who also graduated from Princeton, have their five-year-old daughter Dani with them. Making the reunion even more special is that Maya’s younger sister Naomi is graduating from Princeton, ten years after her big sister. Reunions can be tricky when you scratch below the surface of reminiscing and reconnecting since everyone changes in the years after graduation. Maya doesn’t even look the same.

I wonder if my old classmates recognize me now with my proud mane of curls, so different than the flat-ironed hair I’d hidden beneath in college.

Maya and her sister Naomi grew up multiracial, like Lauren Ling Brown, also a Princeton grad. Brown shared she was, “part Black and part Asian—never feeling like I fit in anywhere, not in my mostly white high school in Atherton, California, and though it was more diverse in many ways, not in many spaces at Princeton.” Maya and Naomi had a similar experience at Princeton, of not fitting in.

Pretty much as soon as she returns to Princeton for the reunion, Maya has a fight on the phone with her sister. It’s bad: she hangs up on Naomi. Maya is still thinking about it the next night when she parties with her classmates. 

I have to admit, I’m not at my best tonight. It never feels good when my sister and I argue. Naomi is the only family I have left aside from my husband and daughter, and it’s usually my fault when there’s an issue between us.

 

But coming back here always sets me on edge. This place brings with it so many memories, and not all of them are good.

Maya checks her phone—maybe Naomi has called—but instead she sees a campus safety alert: Washington Road Bridge and the Lake Carnegie towpath are closed due to police activity. Please use alternative routes. It feels like foreshadowing when Maya’s phone dies. Maya confides in her best friend Daisy that she’s concerned about Naomi but then she attempts to pull herself together and enjoy the evening. It’s not like she and Naomi haven’t weathered rough patches before. But to no avail. Daisy, “with fear in her eyes,” tells Maya that Naomi’s guardian Margaret has called with bad news. Daisy can barely speak but finally says, “I’m so sorry, Maya, Naomi’s dead. She’s gone, I’m so sorry.”

Back we go in time. It’s not a spoiler to say that Society of Lies opens in sorrow and anguish. Although Maya warned her sister when she entered Princeton not to join the Sterling Club, “the most exclusive social club on campus,” she wonders now if, like her, Naomi decided to join. “And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.” Again, just like Maya. Maya may have advised her sister to steer clear of the Sterling Club, but she never told Naomi why. Maya recalls her invitation to the organization within the Sterling Club, the Greystone Society. A “tall and confident” guy, someone Maya had noticed watching her earlier, approaches her at a select gathering. His physical presence has an exhilarating effect on Maya.

He leans down to whisper in my ear, and what he says makes me freeze: “You’ve been tapped for Greystone Society.”

 

I look at him, goosebumps rising over my skin.

 

Greystone Society is so covert that most people at Princeton don’t know they exist. But I’ve been fascinated by them for years.

 

He looks at his watch. “You have thirty seconds to decide if you want to accept. The moment I leave, the offer’s done. So what do you think, are you in?”

 

As the reality of his offer sinks in, I grow aware of the shakiness of my breath, the rush of blood in my ears, all the exhilaration and fear. In front of me is a door to another universe. Another life.

The other life is everything her mother had always wanted for her. She told Maya “to take every strange adventure life presents.” There’s really no question, despite an instinct to say no, Maya is in. Society of Lies posits the question, How far would you go to belong? That question is at the crux of a compelling whodunnit. Maya doesn’t believe Naomi died accidentally. Her sister was never one to be addicted to life-altering drugs—that was not her lifestyle. What haunts Maya in the wake of her sister’s murder is another young woman’s death, years earlier, a mysterious death that Maya has assiduously kept buried deep in her memory. It all comes back to her now, especially when her little family is targeted after they leave Princeton. Her daughter Dani is threatened and that turns Maya into a tiger, determined to unveil the murderer, no matter the consequences. 

Words like Sterling and Greystone evoke a feeling of privilege, of weight and stability—a young person, especially someone who felt “othered” might cling to an unspoken guarantee that membership in such exclusive organizations would set you up for life, far beyond the college years.  It’s the tension between being true to oneself and wanting to fit in, to be accepted, that permeates Society of Lies and makes it a mystery that’s topical, compelling, and thoughtful. 

I’m not the only one who thinks so—Society of Lies is the Reese’s Book Club pick for October! Reese Witherspoon describes it as “gripping…If you’re looking for a page-turner that keeps you on the edge of your seat this spooky season, this one is a must-read!”