The Fake: Not to be confused with The Fraud

Is it an accident that I’ve read two (great) books in as many months concerned with the stability of truth? Maybe. Probably more that I am so worried about ideas of reliability, trustworthiness, agreed upon Facts that I dwell only among books that share my anxiety.

In this – great – one by Zoe Whittall we follow Shelby and Gibson as they each meet and fall for (in different ways) Cammie, a spectacular con-artist who convinces them both of a series of escalating tragedies that have befallen her and why she needs their help. Eventually the lies unravel (so much to be carried by that metaphor) and Cammie is caugh out. Shelby insists none of it is her fault. That the lies upon lies owe to some kind of mental illness and that an intervention and support can help Cammie – perhaps, she speculates, Cammie is a narcissist and if she was only helped and better understood she could find her way back to the truth. Such hope proves misplaced, but still the reader is offered this explanation for harm. And while the book does – in its epilogue at least – point to the persistence of that harm – how Gibson can never properly trust again, how Shelby’s own mental health deteriorates following the dissolution of her friendship with Cammie – it doesn’t go quite as far as The Fraud in making the connection to our current moment of fractured relationship between what is said/read or seen and what is true.

Which is fine. It doesn’t have to be a novel about the end of shared facts. It can be – as it is – an excellent consideration of relationships, of how we grieve, and most importantly of who and how we trust.

If we imagine a future where we need to teach ourselves more intentionally how to tell what is true from what is declarative fiction the Fake would be high on my reading list. Oh, so yes, that time is now, so go on, read it.