Little Liar

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child death, rape, emotional abuse, child abuse, mental illness, addiction, and sexual content.

The morally gray protagonist of the novel, Malachi, combines the archetype of the antihero and the romantic knight. He is tall and muscular, with bright, blue eyes and black hair, and is covered in tattoos and piercings; Olivia describes him as an object of desire for many women. However, Malachi’s forbidding exterior and unsmiling expression keep most women at arm’s length. Malachi is shown at different ages throughout the text but is 28 years old in the present timeline. 

Malachi is a complex character with a traumatic past and behavioral issues whose journey illustrates The Impact of Past Trauma on Present Behaviors. In Little Stranger, the first book of the duology, Malachi is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder when he is 15. In addition, he is diagnosed with selective mutism, in which a person capable of speech cannot or will not speak in certain situations. In Little Liar, Malachi is also referred for investigation for “non-catatonic schizophrenic syndrome” (235). Since Malachi is a first-person narrator in the novel, the reader gets significant access to his interiority.