Lies Over Lies in “The Fake”

In The Fake, by Zoe Whittall, Cammie, a gorgeous con artist, preys on two extremely nice people by meeting them at the lowest point in their lives, and telling her (fictional) tragic tale. The novel tells us right from the beginning that Cammie’s a liar. There’s never a question of the reader believing Cammie’s story, but at the same time, you can’t help seeing how good people like Shelby and Gibson are taken in by her sad situation. I read this story so quickly, because I was just dying to see what would happen. So, the tension isn’t about whether Cammie’s a liar, but about what’s going to become of her and her two marks.

Shelby drags herself to a grief support group meeting after the death of beloved wife, where she meets Cammie, who seems to be going through the same process. A grief support group seems like the perfect place for a grifter like Cammie to meet her vulnerable next mark, but it’s also shocking to see it in action. That’s the feel of the whole book for me — I was impressed with Cammie’s heartless calculations and her ability to use people, while simultaneously worried about the nice, well-meaning, good people she ensnares.

At the same time as Shelby’s starting to attend grief group, Cammie meets and seduces newly-divorced Gibson. She convinces him that they’re soulmates and she moves in almost instantly. His friends see a much-younger new girlfriend as bit of red flag, and one of them notices a weird lie in Cammie’s backstory. But Gibson can’t be swayed from his new love. Again, Cammie has found a perfect new mark, and again, she has a tragic story of abuse, cancer, and hardship, which immediately works on Gibson. Nice, normal people believe other people, don’t they?

This story of good people at low points is completely gripping. I just had to see which lie would get uncovered, and how Cammie would talk herself out of it, and how Shelby and Gibson really wanted to be wrong about her.

I was also intrigued by the secondary characters in The Fake who kinda sorta knew that Cammie was an intense liar, but didn’t take any action. One of the woman at the grief group definitely spotted the holes in Cammie’s story (stories!) and drops hints, but stops short of actually warning Shelby. Was she also taken in? Was she afraid that only a terrible person would even consider the possibility of someone lying about having cancer?

After a fascinating story in The Fake, I didn’t really like the ending, mostly because there was no ending. I wanted an epic ending that fit the high drama of Cammie’s lies, I wanted Gibson and Shelby to become besties and travel the world together, I wanted Cammie to clearly get caught, or to spin a truly spectacular story explaining it all away, I wanted… anyway, after being an absolute pageturner of a devious grifter preying on the kindness of two innocent normies, the story just petered out for me at the end.