The pathological liar and the Moms who won't countenance a lie

pivotal · UNDATED (Weston/E.T.A. boyhood, into adolescence)

• When: UNDATED (childhood through E.T.A. adolescence)
• What: Orin "lied with a really pathological intensity, growing up" (Hal). The set-piece Hal and Mario keep returning to: the Moms's dog S. Johnson, whom Avril would tie to the Volvo and phone so the dog would hear her ring and feel loved from afar — Orin once picked up that phone and barked into it and hung up, "The joke that Orin thought was such a good one," threatening his brothers with Indian rub-burns if they told. Bain's paired verdict (n269): Orin was "a strangely stupid liar," yet Avril met every exploded lie by acting as if it "never reached her ears," treating it "as an insoluble cosmic mystery instead of an exploded lie." More of the mother-son lattice.