The Fake

by Zoe Whittall

HarperCollins Canada

The Fake

by Zoe Whittall

HarperCollins Canada

A con artist walks into a grief support group. Chaos ensues.

After the death of her wife, Shelby is suffering from prolonged grief. She’s increasingly isolated, irritated by her family’s stoicism and her friends’ reliance on the toxic positivity of self-help culture. Then, in a grief support group, she meets Cammie, who gives Shelby permission to express her most hopeless, hideous feelings. Cammie is charismatic and unlike anyone Shelby has ever met. She’s also recovering from cancer and going through several other calamities. Shelby puts all her energy into helping Cammie thrive—until her intuition tells her that something isn’t right.

Gibson is fresh from divorce, almost forty, and deeply depressed. Then he falls in love with Cammie. Not only is he having the best sex of his life with a woman so attractive he’s stunned she even glanced his way, he feels truly known for the first time in his life. But Gibson’s friends are wary of Cammie, and eventually he, too, has to admit that all the drama in Cammie’s life can feel a bit over the top.

When Gibson and Shelby meet, they realize Cammie’s stories don’t always add up. In fact, they’re far from the truth. But what kind of a person would lie about having cancer? And what does it say about Shelby and Gibson that they fell for it? From the author of The Best Kind of People and The Spectacular comes a sharp, emotional novel about lies, liars and the people who love them.

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This book may also be available at the TIFA Festival Bookstore.

Zoe Whittall is the author of three novels and three volumes of poetry. Her third novel, The Best Kind of People, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and is being adapted as a limited series by director Sarah Polley. Her second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, won a Lambda Award for trans fiction, and her debut novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy Award-winning comedy Schitt’s Creek and the Baroness von Sketch Show, for which she won a Canadian Screen Award. She lives in Toronto.

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