# The Fraud

By Zadie Smith

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/the-fraud-300552cc/

In 1873, Eliza Touchet keeps house for her cousin by marriage, the fading novelist William Ainsworth. The Tichborne inheritance trial draws her beyond his literary circle to Andrew Bogle, a formerly enslaved Jamaican man whose testimony supports a butcher claiming to be an aristocratic heir. The courtroom dispute connects lives separated by class and empire.

## What makes it funny?

Ainsworth's library is so heavy that the floor gives way beneath it. Eliza's dry responses to the workman turn a structural problem into a judgment on her employer's literary output. Looking after the author also means scanning newspapers for other writers' successes that might upset him.

### The comedy at work

Smith shifts between Eliza's skeptical judgments and a young workman's practical view of an impressive household. Faced with pictures of Venice, Joseph wonders how anyone tiles steps underwater. Literary prestige and cultivated manners look different to the people who must manage egos or repair floors.

### Try this if…

The appeal includes prickly literary company and a woman unimpressed by its reputation. Readers interested in who gets believed, who gets to tell a story and how class shapes those decisions have more to follow than the courtroom claim alone.

### Good to know

Short scenes move across time, from the trial and Eliza's memories to Bogle's ancestry and life under enslavement. Racism, sexual relationships, BDSM references and strong profanity accompany the literary satire.

## What to expect

- Genre: Contemporary & literary · Historical
- Kind of humor: Dry wit · Satire
- Format: Novel
- Length: 464 pages
- Audiobook: 12 hr 25 min
- Published: 2023

## A few distinguishing details

- A novelist's books literally bring down part of his house
- A Victorian claimant trial connects literary London with Jamaican plantation history

## Sources & further reading

- Publisher: [Publisher](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/568108/the-fraud-by-zadie-smith)
- Book information: [Apple Books audiobook](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/the-fraud-a-novel-unabridged/id1672180497)
- Review: [Kirkus review](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/zadie-smith/the-fraud-smith)
- Publisher: [Publisher edition details and reading excerpt](https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book?isbn=9780525558989)