E. Lockhart

E. Lockhart (b. 1967) — born Emily Jenkins — is an American author who writes under two names and who has produced, under the Lockhart byline, two of the most important YA novels of the twenty-first century: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), a feminist infiltration narrative set at a boarding school, and We Were Liars (2014), a psychological thriller whose twist ending turned it into a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Together, these two novels demonstrate what YA fiction can do when it combines genuine literary intelligence with the emotional intensity of adolescence.

Life and Career

Jenkins/Lockhart studied English and theatre at Vassar College and earned a doctorate from Columbia University. The dual-name career reflects a genuine split: as Emily Jenkins, she writes picture books (Toys Go Out, Lemonade in Winter) and adult nonfiction (Tongue First: Adventures in Physical Culture); as E. Lockhart, she writes YA fiction that is consistently smarter and more structurally ambitious than the genre norm.

Her early YA novels — the Ruby Oliver quartet, beginning with The Boyfriend List (2005) — are witty, self-aware comedies about a Seattle teenager in therapy, narrated in Lockhart’s signature voice: rapid, footnote-heavy, highly verbal, and attuned to the ways teenagers perform identity through language. The Ruby Oliver books built a devoted readership, but the two novels that followed elevated Lockhart from a successful YA writer to a significant one.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008)

Frankie Landau-Banks is a fifteen-year-old student at Alabaster Preparatory Academy, an elite boarding school. When she discovers that her boyfriend is a member of a secret society — the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds — she does not simply wish to be included. She takes over the society by creating an anonymous email identity, directing the boys through increasingly elaborate pranks, and demonstrating that she can outthink every male student at the school without any of them realizing that a girl is in charge.

The novel was a National Book Award finalist and a Printz Honor Book, and it is one of the sharpest feminist YA novels ever written — not because it lectures about feminism, but because it dramatizes the intelligence, strategic thinking, and anger of a young woman who recognizes that the institutional structures around her (the school, the secret society, the relationship) are designed to exclude her, and who responds not with complaint but with action.

We Were Liars (2014)

We Were Liars — about the wealthy, beautiful, seemingly perfect Sinclair family, who spend every summer on their private island — became an enormous bestseller driven almost entirely by word of mouth and the instruction “don’t spoil the ending.” The novel is narrated by Cadence Sinclair Eastman, who is piecing together the memories of a particular summer — the summer of the accident — and the narrative is structured as a gradual uncovering of a truth that the narrator herself does not fully remember.

The novel’s power lies in the gap between the surface (privilege, beauty, family loyalty) and the reality (dysfunction, cruelty, the hoarding of inherited wealth). The twist — which is genuinely devastating and which earned the book its “don’t spoil it” reputation — recontextualizes everything that has come before. The novel sold millions of copies, was translated into dozens of languages, and became one of the defining YA novels of the 2010s.

Family of Liars (2022) — a prequel set in the 1980s — explores the previous generation of Sinclairs and the origins of the family’s dysfunction.

Later Work and Legacy

Again Again (2020) is a more experimental novel — about a girl’s summer of potential romantic encounters, told through branching narratives that explore how different choices lead to different outcomes. The novel’s structure (parallel possibilities, recursive scenes) reflects Lockhart’s ongoing interest in formal innovation within YA.

Lockhart’s influence on YA fiction is substantial. She demonstrated that YA could be formally inventive, intellectually ambitious, and feminist without sacrificing the emotional directness and readability that the audience demands. The generation of YA writers who followed — writers who take for granted that YA fiction can be structurally complex — are writing in territory Lockhart helped define.

Key Works

• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008) — NBA finalist, Printz Honor
• We Were Liars (2014)
• Family of Liars (2022)

Collecting Lockhart

We Were Liars first edition (Delacorte Press, 2014) brings $25–$50; signed copies $50–$100. The first edition is identifiable by the Delacorte colophon and “First Edition” statement on the copyright page. Frankie Landau-Banks first edition (Hyperion, 2008) brings $20–$40 and is arguably the more important novel. The Boyfriend List (Delacorte, 2005) brings $15–$25 as the series debut. Lockhart signs at YA literary events and book festivals.