Books: The Fraud by Zadie Smith

I am usually either hit or miss with historical fiction, but this book landed in the rare area between.

This book looks at the life of a successful writer (although almost unheard of these days) through the eyes of his female cousin, who lived with his family after her husband ran away with her child and then died of scarlet fever. There is not a lot of information out there apparently for these people, which makes it ripe for a historical fiction treatment.

It is a unique book as the point of view allows the author to write about several authors of that time, including Charles Dickens, and make commentary on this man’s world from a woman’s point of view. A very clever woman, at that. There is a lot of wisdom in these pages, from nearly every quarter.

One thing I really liked about reading this long book was that the chapters are presented as bite size pieces – short episodes that are nearly self-contained and help to bring out the points that the writer wishes to make without the risk of having them pass unnoticed in the background of a broader story.

The story proceeds back in forth from different points in time, and I was sometimes confused at first with what was happening and when, but after a while you get a feeling for the framework and it makes sense.

There is an element of the story that comes through related to the sex lives of several of the characters. It wasn’t something I had expected from a novel like this but it certainly is germane to the content. Even so, to me it felt like it was also serving as a connection to the more sexually liberal modern times that we live in. It felt at first like a cheaply employed device to titillate, but the more I thought about it the more I was OK with it. It is hard to say more without giving anything away.

So, a good but not great book for me. Next I am reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.


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