The Fraud
Zadie Smith
The main character in this entertaining novel is Eliza Touchet, a widow and the housekeeper of her cousin by marriage, William Ainsworth. She is an ardent abolitionist and has progressive views on women’s independence. William Ainsworth is a novelist who once sold more books than Charles Dickens, but who in later life was less successful.
Mrs Touchet becomes very interested in the trial of a man who claims to be the inheritor of an estate. The claimant is a local butcher, and only one man – a freed Jamaican slave, Andrew Bogle – testifies credibly on his behalf. Mrs Touchet becomes friends with Mr Bogle and learns from him about the grim realities of how slaves were treated in Jamaica.
The trial is based on a true, eye-catching case of fraud in the 1870s, with several characters being based on real historical figures. The main example of fraud in Smith’s first historical novel is clearly the butcher’s, but there are many other examples in the story, and it is up to the reader to decide what is true.
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- Kellogg, Carolyn. ‘Review: Zadie Smith’s New Historical Novel The Fraud.’ Los Angeles Times, 30 August 2023
- Chakraborty, Abhrajyoti. ‘The Fraud by Zadie Smith review – a trial and no errors.’ The Guardian
- Mahajan, Karan. ‘Book Review: The Fraud by Zadie Smith.’ The New York Times, 28 November 2023
- Charles, Ron. ‘In Zadie Smith’s ‘The Fraud’, truth is an illusion.’ The Washington Post
- Bickle, Sharon. ‘Slavery, Illusion and Dead White Men: Zadie Smith’s The Fraud Explodes the Historical Novel.’ The Conversation, 20 September 2023
- Chakraborty, Abhrajyoti. ‘The Fraud by Zadie Smith review – a trial and no errors.’ The Guardian
- Charles, Ron. ‘In Zadie Smith’s ‘The Fraud’, truth is an illusion.’ The Washington Post
- Edemariam, Aida. ‘Learning Curve.’ The Guardian, 22 February 2018
- Kellogg, Carolyn. ‘Review: Zadie Smith’s New Historical Novel The Fraud.’ Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2023
- Mahajan, Karan. ‘Book Review: The Fraud by Zadie Smith.’The New York Times, 28 November 2023
- Moss, Stephen. ‘White Teeth by Zadie Smith.’ The Guardian, 22 February 2018
- Murphy, Sara. ‘Body Double.’ JSTOR Daily, 27 July 2022
- Smith, Zadie. ‘On Killing Charles Dickens.’ The New Yorker, 3 July 2023
- ‘White Saviour’ Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, December 2023
