Pallieter by Felix Timmermans (1916) is the book most closely associated with Lier. It tells the story of a jovial, pleasure-loving Flemish farmer who lives intensely and joyfully in the countryside around the Nete rivers. Timmermans, who was born and died in Lier, captured the landscape and the spirit of the region so precisely that the book feels almost like a tour of the town.
The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Claus (1983) is the great novel of 20th-century Flemish life — a coming-of-age story set against the Nazi occupation and collaboration, told with corrosive honesty and dark humour. It is set in West Flanders rather than Lier, but gives deep insight into the Flemish world and character that shaped the whole region.
In Flanders Fields and Other Poems by John McCrae (1919) is not fiction, but the poems that McCrae wrote during and after the First World War open a window onto the Flemish landscape and its catastrophic role in 20th-century history. Essential reading for anyone moving through Belgium.