Mirrors and Aberrations

Lennon Carter, a young woman adrift in her own life, is haunted by her reflection—an eyeless aberration that appears in her mirror, hinting at a deeper fracture within her psyche. Preparing for her engagement party, she feels alienated from her fiancé Wyatt and his academic circle, and from herself. The party only intensifies her sense of otherness and isolation, culminating in the discovery of Wyatt's infidelity with her friend Sophia. Lennon's world unravels, and the aberration in the mirror seems to mock her pain, foreshadowing the journey into the unknown that awaits her.

The Call to Drayton

Reeling from betrayal and despair, Lennon flees into the night, contemplating suicide. In a deserted mall parking lot, she encounters a strange, ivy-choked phone booth. The phone rings, and a voice—eerily familiar, echoing her own—invites her to an interview at Drayton College, a place she's never heard of. The call is both a lifeline and a riddle, offering her a chance at something beyond her current misery. Driven by a mix of hopelessness and curiosity, Lennon embarks on an overnight drive to Utah, leaving her old life behind.

Benedict's Interview

Lennon arrives at a grand, enigmatic mansion and meets Benedict, her interviewer. The conversation is unsettlingly intimate; Benedict knows details of her childhood, her family, and her traumas. He probes her capacity for cruelty and self-sacrifice, forcing her to confront uncomfortable truths. The interview is less about academic merit and more about the darkness she carries. Passing the test, Lennon is sent to a birdcage elevator, instructed to ascend to the eighth floor of a two-story house—her entry into Drayton's hidden world.

The Impossible Elevator

Lennon's elevator ride is a passage between realities. She emerges in a cathedral-like space, greeted by a secretary who leads her through a campus that is both beautiful and uncanny. The students are brilliant, peculiar, and sharply dressed, the buildings overgrown and timeless. Lennon is swept into the final stage of her admissions process, feeling as if she's stepped into a dream—or a delusion. The boundaries between self and world, reality and illusion, begin to blur.

Entry Exam Ordeals

The entry exam is a surreal, psychological gauntlet. Lennon must interpret ambiguous images and emotions, her own nosebleed staining the test. The second phase is an expressive interview: she must make a proctor, Dante, lift a pig figurine without touching him. The effort nearly kills her, triggering seizures and a collapse. She awakens in the infirmary, changed and disoriented, but accepted into Drayton. The school's true nature—its study of persuasion, the power to bend minds and matter—begins to reveal itself.

Arrival at the Academy

Lennon is introduced to Drayton's colleges, its arcane traditions, and her fellow students—each with their own strange story of arrival. She bonds with her roommate Blaine, a hospice nurse with a haunted past, and meets other first years, including the intense Ian and the devout Nadine. The curriculum is rigorous and strange, focused on meditation, ethics, and the art of persuasion. Lennon senses that everyone is performing, hiding wounds and ambitions, and that the school itself is a living, breathing entity.

Persuasion and Power

Classes at Drayton are both thrilling and brutal. Under Dante's tutelage, Lennon and her peers practice persuasion on rats, learning to lull, control, and even erase memories. The exercises are ethically fraught, and Lennon is tormented by guilt and empathy for her rat, Gregory. Dante pushes her to see persuasion as a neutral tool, but Lennon fears its potential for harm. The line between training and coercion blurs, and the cost of power—physical, psychological, and moral—becomes increasingly clear.

The Rat and the Will

Lennon's struggle with persuasion deepens as she is drawn into the school's underbelly. She bargains with Kieran, a prodigy-turned-drug-dealer, for psychedelics to enhance her abilities, nearly dying from an overdose. Her relationships with Ian and Blaine grow complicated, marked by jealousy, intimacy, and betrayal. The rats become symbols of vulnerability and control, and Lennon's empathy is both her strength and her weakness. The specter of addiction—chemical and psychic—haunts her, as does the question of what she is willing to do to belong.

Friends, Lovers, Betrayals

Lennon's entanglements with Ian, Blaine, and Dante reach new heights of intensity and confusion. She is initiated into Logos House through a violent, persuasive knife game, betraying Ian and securing her place among the elite. Her attraction to Dante is fraught with fear and longing, complicated by his own secrets and divided loyalties. Friendships fracture under the pressure of competition and survival, and Lennon is forced to confront the darkness in herself and others.

The Gatekeepers' Legacy

Drayton's origins are revealed: a school founded to train those with the rare ability to persuade reality itself. The first gatekeeper, William Irvine, created the school's hidden world at great personal cost. Lennon learns that her own power echoes his, and that the gates protecting Drayton are failing. The faculty's true motives—self-preservation, ambition, fear—come to light, and Lennon realizes she is being groomed as the next gatekeeper, a living engine to sustain the school's existence.

The Party and the Pact

A series of parties and clandestine meetings expose the fractures within Drayton. Lennon's friendships are tested, secrets are traded, and the faculty's manipulations become more overt. The campus is rocked by psychic quakes, a sign that the gates are weakening. Lennon and her allies—Blaine, Sawyer, Emerson—form a pact to protect each other, even as the threat of violence and expulsion looms. The cost of survival is mounting, and Lennon is forced to choose between complicity and resistance.

The Expressive Test

The semester culminates in a brutal sparring match, where Lennon and Ian's rivalry explodes into physical and psychic violence. Lennon's power surges, and in a moment of desperation, she kills Ian, crushing him in the doors of her elevator. The act shatters her, and she becomes a fugitive on campus, hunted by faculty and peers alike. The boundaries between self-defense and murder, accident and intent, blur. Lennon's guilt and trauma threaten to consume her, even as she is forced to keep running.

The Faculty's Secrets

Lennon uncovers the faculty's darkest secrets: the chancellor William is a living corpse, kept alive to sustain the gates; Eileen, the vice-chancellor, is a master manipulator who seeks to control Lennon's power; Dante's past is marked by violence, loss, and complicity in the death of his friend August. Lennon's own memories are weaponized against her, and she is forced to confront the reality that she is both victim and perpetrator in Drayton's cycle of abuse.

The Quake and the Collapse

As the gates begin to fail, chaos erupts on campus. Lennon's friends risk everything to help her escape, and a final confrontation with Eileen and Alec leaves the faculty broken and scattered. Lennon and Dante, both wounded and exhausted, work together to raise a new gate, channeling all their power to save the school. The effort nearly kills them both, and Dante is lost in the process, leaving Lennon to face the aftermath alone.

The Hall of Memories

Lennon, now chancellor, is haunted by the past—her own and Drayton's. She uses her power to travel through time, seeking answers about Dante, Benedict, and the school's legacy. The hall of memories is both a literal and metaphorical space, filled with doors to moments of pain, love, and betrayal. Lennon's journey is one of reckoning, as she confronts the cost of survival and the impossibility of undoing what has been done.

The Sacrifice of William

The death of William, the last gatekeeper, marks the end of an era. Lennon is forced to assume his role, becoming the living engine that sustains Drayton's reality. The process is agonizing, both physically and psychically, and Lennon is left to grapple with the knowledge that her power is both a gift and a curse. The cycle of sacrifice continues, and Lennon must decide what kind of leader she will be.

The New Chancellor

As chancellor, Lennon wields unprecedented power, but at great personal cost. She is both revered and feared, isolated from her friends and haunted by the ghosts of those she has lost. The faculty is purged, the school rebuilt, but Lennon's grief and guilt remain. She is forced to confront the reality that power cannot heal all wounds, and that the price of survival is often loneliness.

The Price of Power

In the aftermath, Lennon seeks redemption—not through erasure or denial, but through memory and responsibility. She reconnects with her friends, honors the dead, and tries to build a better future for Drayton. The story ends with a sense of hard-won hope: that even in a world built on lies, violence, and sacrifice, it is possible to choose compassion, to remember, and to begin again.

Characters

Lennon Carter

Lennon is the protagonist, a young Black woman whose life is marked by trauma, alienation, and a desperate yearning for significance. Her journey is one of self-discovery and survival, as she is drawn into Drayton's world of persuasion and power. Lennon's empathy is both her strength and her vulnerability; she is tormented by guilt, haunted by her own darkness, and driven by a need to prove her worth. Her relationships—with Wyatt, Blaine, Ian, and especially Dante—are fraught with desire, rivalry, and betrayal. As she becomes Drayton's new gatekeeper and chancellor, Lennon is forced to confront the cost of power, the impossibility of innocence, and the hope for redemption. Her arc is one of transformation: from victim to survivor, from outsider to leader, from haunted to (tentatively) whole.

Dante Lowe

Dante is Lennon's advisor, mentor, and eventual lover. A brilliant persuasionist with a violent, tragic past, Dante is both protector and betrayer. His relationship with Lennon is marked by attraction, fear, and a shared sense of otherness. Dante's own history—his complicity in the death of his friend August, his fraught relationship with Eileen, his role in Drayton's power structure—mirrors Lennon's struggles. He is both a guide and a warning, embodying the dangers of unchecked power and the possibility of sacrifice. Dante's ultimate act—giving his life and power to help Lennon save Drayton—cements his role as both martyr and ghost, a presence that lingers in Lennon's memory and the school's legacy.

Blaine

Blaine is Lennon's roommate and closest friend at Drayton. A hospice nurse with a history of violence and survival, Blaine is both confidante and betrayer. Her own secrets—her abusive marriage, her role in tending to the dying chancellor William—mirror Lennon's struggles with guilt and complicity. Blaine's loyalty is tested by fear and self-preservation, but she ultimately chooses to help Lennon, risking her own place at Drayton. Her arc is one of reckoning: with her past, her friendships, and her own capacity for both harm and healing.

Ian

Ian is Lennon's rival and lover, a student whose brilliance is matched by his insecurity and possessiveness. Their relationship is marked by competition, desire, and violence, culminating in Ian's death at Lennon's hands. Ian embodies the dangers of unchecked ambition and the destructive potential of persuasion. His death is both a turning point and a wound that haunts Lennon, forcing her to confront the cost of survival and the impossibility of innocence.

Benedict

Benedict is Lennon's first guide at Drayton, a faculty member whose knowledge of her past and pain is both comforting and unsettling. He is a gatekeeper of secrets, both his own and the school's. Benedict's relationship with Lennon is marked by intimacy and manipulation; he tests her, pushes her, and ultimately tries to destroy her when he deems her too dangerous. His death at Lennon's hands is both self-defense and a perpetuation of Drayton's cycle of violence.

Eileen

Eileen is the vice-chancellor of Drayton, a woman whose power is matched only by her ruthlessness. She is both mentor and adversary, seeking to control Lennon's power for her own ends. Eileen's relationship with Dante is fraught with history and betrayal, and her role in sustaining the school's gates is both conductor and parasite. Her downfall is orchestrated by Lennon, who uses her own tools of persuasion and memory against her.

Sawyer

Sawyer is a second-year student and Lennon's friend, a librarian with a keen sense of history and the dangers of knowledge. He is both witness and participant in Drayton's dramas, offering Lennon both practical help and emotional support. Sawyer's arc is one of quiet resilience, as he survives the school's upheavals and helps rebuild in the aftermath.

Kieran

Kieran is a prodigy-turned-drug-dealer, a student whose brilliance is matched by his cynicism and self-interest. He is both ally and antagonist, helping Lennon when it suits him and betraying her when it doesn't. Kieran embodies the moral ambiguity of Drayton, thriving in its shadows and exploiting its weaknesses.

Emerson

Emerson is the president of Logos House and a rising power at Drayton. Her relationship with Lennon is marked by rivalry and respect, and she becomes a key ally in the final struggle for control of the school. Emerson's arc is one of adaptation, as she navigates the shifting power dynamics and helps build a new order in the aftermath.

William Irvine

William is the original gatekeeper, a figure whose power sustains the school at the cost of his own life and sanity. His suffering is both literal and symbolic, embodying the price of power and the cycle of sacrifice that defines Drayton. William's death marks the end of an era and the beginning of Lennon's own burden as gatekeeper.

Plot Devices

The Mirror Aberration

The recurring motif of Lennon's eyeless reflection in the mirror serves as a symbol of her fractured self, her dissociation, and the lurking darkness within. It foreshadows the psychic battles to come, the blurring of reality and illusion, and the ultimate confrontation with her own capacity for violence and survival.

The Phone Booth and the Call

The phone booth, overgrown and out of place, is a portal between worlds—a liminal space where Lennon is both called and tested. The call itself is a plot device that initiates her journey, blending fate, agency, and the uncanny. It recurs as a symbol of Drayton's reach and the inescapability of its influence.

The Elevator Gates

Elevators in the novel are more than transportation; they are manifestations of will, power, and the ability to traverse not just space but time. They serve as both literal and metaphorical gateways, representing Lennon's journey into the unknown, her mastery of persuasion, and the cost of crossing boundaries. The elevator's form is shaped by the mind, and its use is both a test and a weapon.

The Entry Exam and Expressive Interview

The surreal, psychological exams at Drayton are plot devices that reveal character, foreshadow trauma, and establish the school's ethos. The expressive interview, in particular, is a crucible for Lennon's power and guilt, setting the stage for later acts of violence and self-discovery.

The Hall of Memories

The hall of memories is both a literal space and a narrative device, allowing Lennon (and the reader) to revisit key moments, uncover secrets, and confront the consequences of action and inaction. It blurs the boundaries between past and present, self and other, and serves as the stage for the novel's climactic revelations.

Psychic Suppression and Persuasion

The use of persuasion as both a tool and a weapon is central to the novel's structure. Psychic suppression, memory erasure, and the manipulation of will are plot devices that drive conflict, reveal character, and explore the moral grayness of power. The faculty's use of these tools against students—and each other—mirrors the cycles of abuse and survival at the heart of Drayton.

Foreshadowing and Nonlinear Structure

The novel is rich in foreshadowing, from the aberration in the mirror to the recurring phone calls and elevator bells. Its nonlinear structure—moving between past and present, memory and reality—mirrors Lennon's own journey through trauma, guilt, and transformation. The inevitability of sacrifice, and the impossibility of innocence, are woven throughout.

Analysis

An Academy for Liars is a dark, ambitious meditation on the cost of power, the legacy of trauma, and the search for belonging in a world built on lies. Alexis Henderson reimagines the "magical school" trope as a crucible of psychological horror, where the true magic is the ability to persuade, to control, to survive. The novel interrogates the ethics of ambition, the seduction and danger of charisma, and the cycles of abuse that perpetuate themselves in closed systems. Lennon's journey—from haunted outsider to chancellor and gatekeeper—is both a personal and institutional reckoning, forcing her (and the reader) to confront the impossibility of innocence and the necessity of memory. The book's lessons are hard-won: that power is never neutral, that survival often demands complicity, and that redemption is found not in erasure but in the willingness to remember, to grieve, and to begin again. In the end, Henderson suggests that even in a world of liars, it is possible to choose compassion, to build something new from the ruins, and to hold on to hope—however fragile.

Last updated: September 1, 2025