Attention-Seeking Behaviour – May Book of the Month

When reading a fiction novel, the reader is aware the story presented to them isn’t real by opening the book to a disclaimer on the copyright page claiming as such. Yet when reading a novel blending fiction, memoir, and essays, which predominantly focus on the act of lying, it’s hard to know what you should and shouldn’t believe. Our May Book of the Month is Attention-Seeking Behaviour by Aea Varfis-Van Warmelo, which blends fiction and non-fiction together to produce a stunning debut about the proximity of literature and lying, perfect for fans of Harriet Armstrong and Sheena Patel.

Attention-Seeking Behaviour takes the audience on a whirlwind of a story by following a modern romance depicted through London’s dating scene; offering a historic breakdown of lie detection methods and how the UK and US use them to this day; and most importantly uses an unreliable narrator at its core.

Throughout the book, the narrator has full control of how the story is presented, making the audience believe everything is true until it is stated otherwise, consistently merging fiction and facts into one. An in-depth chapter focusing on American psychologist Paul Ekham and his legacy on lie detection methods is swiftly followed by the narrator rambling about her childhood across 3 pages in one continuous sentence. The narrator keeps control of the people around her by lying to her employers about the other jobs she has and meticulously plans her sex life in a way which allows her to never get too close to a person—yet often fantasises about past lovers comparing notes on them and realising the truth.

The narrator’s control starts to unravel when she meets Normal Ben; one of the many people she is sleeping with, but develops a soft spot for. He believes her tale of finding a dead body in Battersea Park as she describes the scene throughout the opening chapter of the book, as well as many other lies she fabricates. Despite the narrator’s compulsion to lie, it becomes apparent she wants to become a “better person” for Normal Ben by owning up to the lies she has constructed around her life, but finds it difficult to do so.

Still, the narrator does prove one thing; you can never fully tell when someone is lying. Her intricate detail of lie detection methods and their falsehood of gaining the truth is clear, leaving the reader to question the ethics and morality behind them. A section in the second half the novel details how the polygraph doesn’t work and William Moulton Marston’s good will in creating the machine (and later Wonder Woman) to protect innocent people from crimes they didn’t commit, was immediately corrupted by the American government and its legal system: “The scale of its corruption is almost beyond belief, and yet, somehow, I manage to believe it.”

Aea Varfis-Van Warmelo has proven to be a breath of fresh air with Attention-Seeking Behaviour by laying down her own faults and self-criticism at the door and trusting the reader to engage with the novel and coming to their own conclusions on what to take away from the novel.

Praise for Attention-Seeking Behaviour

‘Sexy, frightening, immaculately written and mercilessly perceptive. It’s also the most exacting, eviscerating self critique since St Augustine. Left me with a deeper understanding of myself that I sort of wish I didn’t have. I loved every page.’ — Luke Kennard