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The Fraud

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Sharp historical wit about truth and performance

This is the kind of novel that feels brilliantly alive with ideas, but never loses its human bite. If you like smart, character-driven fiction, Eliza’s sceptical voice and the book’s probing look at empire, class, and deception make it especially rewarding. Readers often love how Zadie Smith turns a real Victorian scandal into something funny, unsettling, and strikingly relevant.

  • Walter Scott Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Writers' Prize Nominee for Fiction (2024)
  • The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Libby Award Nominee for Best Adult Fiction (2024)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.
Just Arrived

The Fraud

Regular price $11.90
Unit price
per
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ISBN: 9780593792643
Authors: Zadie Smith
Date of Publication: 2023-10-31
Format: Paperback
Related Topics: Literature, Mystery, Race
Goodreads rating: 3.25
(rated by 35953 readers)

Description

It is 1873. Mrs Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper - and cousin by marriage - of a once famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle meanwhile grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.The 'Tichborne Trial' captivates Mrs Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task...Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of 'other people.'
 

Sharp historical wit about truth and performance

This is the kind of novel that feels brilliantly alive with ideas, but never loses its human bite. If you like smart, character-driven fiction, Eliza’s sceptical voice and the book’s probing look at empire, class, and deception make it especially rewarding. Readers often love how Zadie Smith turns a real Victorian scandal into something funny, unsettling, and strikingly relevant.

  • Walter Scott Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Writers' Prize Nominee for Fiction (2024)
  • The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  • Libby Award Nominee for Best Adult Fiction (2024)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.