The Last Time I Lied: A Novel

As the manmade lake at the center of Camp Nightingale, Lake Midnight symbolizes Hiding Reality Behind Idyllic Appearances. Throughout the novel, characters lie about or otherwise hide truths they feel ashamed of or guilty about. In the end, all these attempts are futile, and the truth eventually reveals itself. Likewise, the water of Lake Midnight covers the history of the valley, but covering is not the same as erasing: Everything from the branches of drowned trees to the building that was once Peaceful Valley Asylum still exists under the surface. While some of the land’s “ancient history” might be forgotten or overlooked, it never disappears. The reality still exists deep at the bottom of the lake.

However, the existence of Peaceful Valley, which proves to have been relatively innocuous, is not the most significant secret buried in the lake. Rather, the lake conceals the bodies of Allison and Natalie, whom Vivian killed in retaliation for the role they played in her sister’s drowning. That she settles on the lake as their grave is significant; she herself says she wants them to experience what her sister did, and in the context of the broader novel, the choice suggests how “submerged” trauma inevitably resurfaces, often in ways that replay past violence.

This connection between the lake and concealed trauma lends symbolic weight to Emma’s climactic fall into the water. Although Emma is fixated on the summer she spent at Camp Nightingale as a teenager, her memory of it is also distorted in critical ways. In particular, she avoids confronting Vivian’s cruelty directly, instead explaining it away or insisting that her own actions were worse. Emma’s immersion in the lake represents her reckoning with the full reality of what happened that summer. Although it is ultimately Vivian herself who reveals the truth to Emma, it is no coincidence that falling into the lake results in Emma’s discovery of Natalie and Allison’s bodies, nor that it is followed by her meeting with Vivian; in some sense, Emma is now psychologically prepared for Vivian’s revelations.

Vivian’s favorite game, Two Truths and a Lie, is a motif that speaks to the theme of The Blurred Lines Between Truth, Lies, and Deception. This blurring is evident throughout the novel: Lies are often presented as truths, and truths are often presented as lies. The game hinges on this confusion, as Vivian teaches Emma; the point is to “trick [players] by telling the truth” (94). For example, a person may present the truth in such a way that it appears to be a lie or so that it disguises their true intentions. Characters play the game for fun but also use it to reveal consequential information, such as when Emma accuses Vivian of sleeping with Theo or when Vivian confesses to murdering Natalie and Allison. The game illustrates the extent to which characters are invested in twisting and manipulating the truth and reveals how lies can become as consequential in shaping reality as truth. That Vivian describes life itself as a “game” renders the parallels closer still.