Zadie Smith's The Fraud is a lot of things: a meticulously researched work of historical fiction, a smart narrative about the importance of truth and the shortcomings of perspective, and a tale that delves deeply into authenticity and justice. It's also a very long book.
It's 1873 and Mrs. Eliza Touchet, a smart Scottish woman with a plethora of interests, has been working as a housekeeper for William Ainsworth, a writer whose career seems to be stuck on a downward spiral, for three decades. Ainsworth, who is also Eliza's cousin by marriage, likes Eliza and is doggedly working on his writing in order to recoup the modicum of recognition he once enjoyed, and which he now regularly aggrandizes in his retellings. Unfortunately, Ainsworth isn't a very good writer, and Eliza knows it. Eliza pretends to enjoy William's work, but she has a harder time staying quiet about other things they disagree on, like politics, injustice, and colonialism.
