Shelby finds Cammie’s performance in the group almost terrifying. She watches her speak and realizes that she has no idea what Cammie’s limits are. Who knows how far she would go to preserve this fake identity. She feels like she might throw up, so instead she stands up and starts towards the door. As she walks she tries to breathe steadily and picture being home, with Coach Taylor, in her grounded place.
Told from three points-of-view — the narratives of the two “marks”, Shelby and Gibson, and opening and closing statements from “con artist”, Cammie — The Fake is a thoroughly compelling and perceptive examination of just what it is we desire and expect of one another, and what we’re willing to do or ignore to get what we want. Author Zoe Whittall has crafted something rather interesting here: Instead of just giving us another dirtbag female protagonist in the vein of Gillian Flynn or Ottessa Moshfegh — although Cammie’s actions do give us that same cathartic girl-behaving-badly-by-proxy vibe — Whittall goes on to ask whether Cammie was really responsible for her behaviour (could her actions be neurological or a trauma response?) while also wondering whether her “victims” didn't actually get the most out of their relationships (just who is using who in the end?) A shortish and easy read, with quick, propulsive chapters, I found this to be interesting on many levels.
Who are you going to believe? Someone like me, who has survived so much, and has nothing to lose? Or a pathetic man who could barely tie his shoes after his wife left him? Or a woman who always thinks she has a brain tumour and has panic attacks in the grocery store? You’re going to believe them because they have perfect teeth and never had to do anything they didn’t want to do in life. I am tough because I have had to be. You’re a smart person, obviously. You read books. I’m just trying to give you the basics right now. I have the right to defend myself. Doesn’t everyone, even these days?
In her Acknowledgements, Whittall makes cryptic reference to a time when she had had to “figure out the truth”, and in this interview she explains, “I have had experiences with people like Cammie in my life. That’s why I wrote the book. But it’s also why it took me a really long time to be able to fictionalize the experience. I needed to find the coherence and the humour and the irony in it.” So, apparently, Whittall knows of what she writes and the ironic humour is the point. It’s easy to look at a pathological liar and say that her actions are evil and manipulative, but consider the bigger picture: Just why would the recently-separated middle-aged Gibson — living in a dingy apartment filled with unpacked boxes — think that the gorgeous young Cammie found him irresistibly attractive? And why did the recently-widowed anxiety-prone Shelby believe that the larger-than-life star of their grief support group would go to great lengths to bring her back to life if Cammie didn’t also want something out of the transaction? When Gibson and Shelby insist on meeting each other (over Cammie’s protests, but Gibson and Shelby eventually demand all of “their girl”), they start to put together inconsistencies in Cammie’s stories. But instead of leaving us with the conclusion that Cammie was wholly in the wrong for using the pair for housing and a bit of spending money, Whittall insists that we consider what Gibson and Shelby (two stable but hurting adults who should have known better) gained from Cammie (a younger woman who probably has psychological challenges): there's nothing black and white in this story and that’s what makes for interesting reading.
He watches from the window as she crosses the street and lies down on her back on a bench at the bus stop, her knees up, one arm over her eyes, the other arm putting her flat purse under her shirt to keep from getting robbed. She looks like she’s done this a million times. He knows then that all the times he’s protected her, saved her, bought things for her, it was theatre. She never needed him, even once, to save her from anything.
In addition to the interesting plot and what it left me to ponder, I enjoyed all of the Canadiana: from shopping at Winners and Dominion, listening to the Weakerthans and a Tribe Called Red, I smiled at the mention of Owen Sound — the small town my mother-in-law is from — which I’m sure I’ve never read in a novel before. Much to like here.
