FRANK CERVI

PRETTY LIES PERISH

 

Pretty Lies Perish is a collection of interconnected tales, testimonies and confessionals set across the American past, present and future that examine the human spirit under a florescent spotlight. The plight of each characters situation is relative to their current environment- from the offices in Wall Street, to the seedy strip clubs of Texas. Loneliness, fear, shame, greed and alienation are the emotional currencies that are passed under the table from the characters to the reader as they hand out their secrets, dreams, regrets and hopes all for a chance at respite and self-healing. In a world where everyone has a price, pretty lies will die. 

 

The books theme is that of a nation [America] in decline. All the characters have something in-common about their lives and situations. The social commentary and undertones in this book are immense. It is essentially a scathing editorial beneath the stories about how the current way of American or Western life is eroding away at itself. The country is essentially a dying patient on a medical bed, having its insides slowly being eaten by a disease. People have given up, lost hope and have become self-destructive in their habits. Everyone wants some sort of escape from the madness, the rat-race, the drain and the illusion.