The Fake
A Novel
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3.7 • 16 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A con artist walks into a grief support group. Chaos ensues.
After the death of her wife, Shelby is suffering from prolonged grief. She’s increasingly isolated, irritated by her family’s stoicism and her friends’ reliance on the toxic positivity of self-help culture. Then, in a grief support group, she meets Cammie, who gives Shelby permission to express her most hopeless, hideous feelings. Cammie is charismatic and unlike anyone Shelby has ever met. She’s also recovering from cancer and going through several other calamities. Shelby puts all her energy into helping Cammie thrive—until her intuition tells her that something isn’t right.
Gibson is fresh from divorce, almost forty, and deeply depressed. Then he falls in love with Cammie. Not only is he having the best sex of his life with a woman so attractive he’s stunned she even glanced his way, he feels truly known for the first time in his life. But Gibson’s friends are wary of Cammie, and eventually he, too, has to admit that all the drama in Cammie’s life can feel a bit over the top.
When Gibson and Shelby meet, they realize Cammie’s stories don’t always add up. In fact, they’re far from the truth. But what kind of a person would lie about having cancer? And what does it say about Shelby and Gibson that they fell for it? From the author of The Best Kind of People and The Spectacular comes a sharp, emotional novel about lies, liars and the people who love them.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If you love a good scammer story, this deliciously intense novel will have you hooked. A widow named Shelby and a recently divorced man named Gibson don’t know it, but they have something in common. They’re both in love with a bold, captivating woman named Cammie who’s currently finishing up her cancer treatment. When the two Torontonians discover that Cammie’s entire persona is built on lies, they’re forced to take a hard look at themselves. Best-selling author Zoe Whittall (The Best Kind of People) dives into her characters’ minds, examining how grief and loss make us all more vulnerable to manipulation. But The Fake isn’t a slow or mournful story. It’s a highbrow thriller that’s very fun to read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two people are deceived by the same trickster in the diverting latest from Whittall (The Best Kind of People). Thirty-something Shelby joins a support group after her wife dies from an aneurism. There, she meets Cammie, the eponymous phony, who's delighted to encounter someone else who's under 40. Shelby, meanwhile, wonders what Cammie's doing there; "She looks too good to be in mourning," Shelby thinks, "like an Instagram ad." A parallel narrative follows recent divorcé Gibson, 39, who meets Cammie at a bar and is immediately taken by the wild younger woman who beats him at poker and suggests they have sex as a consolation prize. Shelby and Gibson both enter a honeymoon phase with Cammie (Shelby's is platonic, though she continues to harbor a crush), but after the two meet, Cammie's stories about performing on an Arcade Fire album and having a dead sister plus a cancer diagnosis unravel. The somewhat predictable narrative echoes TV shows like Inventing Anna and The Tinder Swindler, though there are deeper thrills in witnessing those in Cammie's orbit untangle their self-delusions. There aren't many surprises, but Whittall brings plenty of verve to the proceedings.
