The fraud

Eliza Touchet, William Harrison Ainsworth's sharp-witted cousin by marriage, has long been essential to the writer's existence as, at very least, his muse, confidante, housekeeper, protector, first reader, and copyist. In 1873, William's novels are no longer best-sellers and funds are low, but at 63 he's marrying his 26-year-old maid, Sarah, with whom he has a young daughter, further complicating Eliza's fraught situation. In a triumph of sly narration, Smith has Eliza ruefully and teasingly reveal the hidden facets of her life, including the moral peril of being an abolitionist with ties to a "Jamaican fortune" poisoned by slavery. Rigorous Eliza can't resist accompanying down-to-earth Sarah to a London courtroom to witness a case that has captivated the country as an Australian butcher pursues his claim that he is a long-lost British aristocrat, supported by gripping testimony from Andrew Bogle, a formerly enslaved Black man. Smith's history-rooted and trenchant portrayals of largely forgotten Ainsworth, Bogle, and the Tichborne Claimant, along with such famous figures as Charles Dickens, delectably and incisively interrogate recognition and erasure, fraud and gullibility, prejudice and injustice. Wielding delectably honed language in pithy chapters spiked with surprising revelations, needling observations, and lacerating truths, Smith, in her most commanding novel to date, dramatizes with all-too relevant insights crucial questions of veracity and mendacity, privilege and tyranny, survival and self, trust and betrayal.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Versatile, brilliant, and best-selling Smith is always a must-read, and this spectacularly entertaining and resonant historical novel will have enormous appeal.

Smith's mesmerizing latest (after the essay collection Feel Free) centers on a real-life Victorian cause célèbre involving a man who claims to be a long-lost English aristocrat. The story opens in 1873, when Scottish widow Eliza Touchet (like most of the novel's characters, a historical figure) has spent four decades as the housekeeper for novelist William Ainsworth, her cousin by marriage. One of her distractions from her unrewarding life is the highly publicized controversy surrounding the so-called Tichborne Claimant. English aristocrat Roger Tichborne is believed to have drowned off the Brazilian coast in 1854. Twelve years later, however, a man who says he's Sir Roger begins a lengthy attempt to claim the Tichborne title and fortune. As a spectator at the 1871 civil trial the claimant initiates to establish his identity, Eliza doubts his story yet instinctively believes one of the witnesses on his behalf, a formerly enslaved man named Andrew Bogle. After the jury rules against the claimant and he is arrested for perjury and fraud, Eliza introduces herself to Bogle. An abolitionist, she's moved by his dignity and vulnerability, and persuades him to tell her his story. In the process, she realizes that she, like Ainsworth, is a writer. Smith weaves Eliza's shrewd and entertaining recollections of her life, a somber account of Bogle's ancestry and past, brief excerpts from Ainsworth's books, and historic trial transcripts into a seamless and stimulating mix, made all the more lively by her juxtaposing of imagination with first- and secondhand accounts and facts. The result is a triumph of historical fiction. (Sept.)

Through decades of decline, Eliza Touchet has kept house for William Harrison Ainsworth and continued to edit his egregious prose. She remembers the 1830s, when a backbiting cohort of British literati celebrated Ainsworth almost as much as up-and-comer Dickens. Thirty years later, a new national fixation on the controversial Tichborne Trial intrudes on Eliza's orderly management of yet another move by her boss to less expensive quarters. The prickly Scotswoman scorns news of the trial until she has the chance to interview a witness for the defense--a supporter of the Australian butcher claiming to be heir to the Tichborne baronetcy, presumed dead. Andrew Bogle, even more than Eliza, has been staunch. He says so in one of the many brilliant character voices that Smith herself performs in this audio adaptation of her latest novel. Performing Scottish Eliza, Jamaican Andrew, and Britons from all social classes, Smith imbues her writing with added authenticity for listeners. She even sings a few bars (applying her jazz background to her sixth novel as deftly as she incorporated a love of dance in Swing Time, her fifth), demonstrating that genuine self-expression pays off, though not for poor Ainsworth. VERDICT A must-buy audio. Smith's intricately constructed pastiche of 19th-century British literature, an indictment of cultural hypocrisy, is superb.--Lauren Kage

An obscure English novelist and a missing-heir trial are the real historical springboards for Smith's latest fiction. Eliza Touchet is cousin and housekeeper to William Ainsworth, whose novel Jack Sheppard once outsold Oliver Twist but who, by 1868, has been far eclipsed by his erstwhile friend Dickens. Widower William is about to marry his maid Sarah Wells, who has borne him a child. Characteristically, he leaves the arrangements to Eliza, who manages everything about his life except the novels he keeps cranking out, which his shrewd cousin knows are dreadful. The new Mrs. Ainsworth is obsessed with the man claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, heir to a family fortune who was reported drowned in a shipwreck. The Claimant, as he is called, is likely a butcher from Wapping, but Sarah is one of many working-class Britons who passionately defend him as a man of the people being done wrong by the toffs. Eliza gets drawn into the trial by her fascination with Andrew Bogle, formerly enslaved by the Tichbornes in Jamaica, who recognizes the Claimant as Sir Roger. A Roman Catholic in Protestant Britain and William's former lover who's been supplanted by a younger woman, Eliza feels a connection to Bogle as a fellow outsider. (Some pointed scenes, however, make it clear that this sense of kinship is one-sided and that well-intentioned Eliza can be as patronizing as any other white Briton.) Smith alternates the progress of the trial with Eliza's memories of the past, which include tart assessments of William's circle of literary pals, who eventually make clear their disdain for his work, and intriguing allusions to her affair with William's first wife and to her S & M sex with William. (Eliza wielded the whips.) It's skillfully done, but the minutely detailed trial scenes provide more information than most readers will want, and a lengthy middle section recounting Bogle's African ancestry and enslaved life, though gripping, further blurs the narrative's focus. Historical fiction doesn't seem to bring out Smith's strongest gifts; this rather pallid narrative lacks the zest of her previous novels' depictions of contemporary life. Intelligent and thoughtful but not quite at this groundbreaking writer's usual level of excellence. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1 A Very Large Hole A filthy boy stood on the doorstep. He might be scrubbed of all that dirt, eventually - but not of so many orange freckles. No more than fourteen, with skinny, unstable legs like a marionette, he kept pitching forward, shifting soot into the hall. Still, the woman who'd opened the door - easily amused, susceptible to beauty - found she couldn't despise him. 'You're from Tobin's?' 'Yes, missus. Here about the ceiling. Fell in, didn't it?' 'But two men were requested!' 'All up in London, missus. Tiling. Fearsome amount of tiling needs doing in London, madam . . .' He saw of course that she was an old woman, but she didn't move or speak like one. A high bosom, handsome, her face had few wrinkles and her hair was black. Above her chin, a half-moon line, turned upside down. Such ambiguities were more than the boy could unravel. He deferred to the paper in his hand, reading slowly: 'Number One, St James-es Villas, St James-es Road, Tunbridge Wells. The name's Touch-it, ain't it?' From inside the house came a full-throated Ha! The woman didn't flinch. She struck the boy as both canny and hard, like most Scots. 'All pronunciations of my late husband's name are absurd. I choose to err on the side of France.' Now a bearded, well-padded man emerged behind her in the hall. In a dressing gown and slippers, with grey through his whiskers and a newspaper in hand, he walked with purpose towards a bright conservatory. Two King Charles spaniels followed, barking madly. He spoke over his shoulder - 'Cousin, I see you are bored and dangerous this morning!' - and was gone. The woman addressed her visitor with fresh energy: 'This is Mr Ainsworth's house. I am his housekeeper, Mrs Eliza Touchet. We have a very large hole on the second floor - a crater. The structural integrity of the second floor is in question. But it is a job for two men, at the very least, as I explained in my note.' The boy blinked stupidly. Could it really be on account of so many books? 'Never you mind what it was on account of. Child, have you recently been up a chimney?' The visitor took exception to 'child'. Tobin's was a respectable firm: he'd done skirting boards in Knightsbridge, if it came to that. 'We was told it was an emergency, and not to dawdle. Tradesmen's entrance there is, usually.' Cheek, but Mrs Touchet was amused. She thought of happier days in grand old Kensal Rise. Then of smaller, charming Brighton. Then of this present situation in which no window quite fit its frame. She thought of decline and the fact that she was tied to it. She stopped smiling. 'When entering a respectable home,' she remarked, lifting her skirts from the step to avoid the dirt he had deposited there, 'it is wise to prepare for all eventualities.' The boy pulled off his cap. It was a hot September day, hard to think through. Shame to have to move a finger on such a day! But cunts like this were sent to try you, and September meant work, only work. 'I'll come in or I won't come in?' he muttered, into his cap. 2 A Late Ainsworth She walked swiftly across the black and white diamonds of the hall, taking the stairs two at a time without touching the banister. 'Name?' 'Joseph, ma'am.' 'It's narrow here - mind the pictures.' Books lined the landing like a second wall. The pictures were of Venice, a place he'd always found hard to credit, but then you saw these dusty old prints in people's houses so you had to believe. He felt sorry for Italian boys. How do you go about tiling a doorstep with water coming right up to it? What kind of plumbing can be managed if there's no basement to take the pipes? They arrived at the library disaster. The little dogs - stupid as they looked - skittered right to the edge but no further. Joseph tried standing as Tobin himself would, legs wide, arms folded, nodding sadly at the sight of this hole, as you might before a fallen woman or an open sewer. 'So many books. What's he need with them all?' 'Mr Ainsworth is a writer.' 'What - so he writ them all?' 'A surprising amount of them.' The boy stepped forward to peer into the crater, as over the lip of a volcano. She joined him. These shelves had held histories three volumes deep: the kings, queens, clothes, foods, castles, plagues and wars of bygone days. But it was the Battle of Culloden that had pushed things over the edge. Anything referring to Bonnie Prince Charlie was now in the downstairs parlour, covered in plaster, or else caught in the embrace of the library's Persian rug, which sagged through the hole in the floor, creating a huge, suspended, pendulous shape like an upturned hot air balloon. 'Well, now you see, madam, and if you don't mind me saying' - he picked up a dusty book and turned it over in his hand with a prosecutorial look on his face - 'the sheer weight of literature you've got here, well, that will put a terrible strain on a house, Mrs Touchet. Terrible strain.' 'You are exactly right.' Was she laughing at him? Perhaps 'literature' was the wrong word. Perhaps he had pronounced it wrong. He dropped the book, discouraged, knelt down, and took out his yardstick to measure the hole. Just as he was straightening up, a young child ran in, slid on what was left of the parquet and overturned an Indian fern. She was pursued by a nice-looking, bosomy sort in an apron, who managed to catch the child moments before she fell through the house. 'Clara Rose! I told you - you ain't allowed. Sorry about that, Eliza.' This was said to the prickly Scot, who replied: 'That's quite all right, Sarah, but perhaps it's time for Clara's nap . . .' The little Clara person, in response to being held so tight at the waist, cried: 'No, Mama, NO!' - yet seemed to be addressing the maid. The boy from Tobin's gave up all hope of understanding this peculiar household. He watched the maid grasp the child, too hard, by the wrist, as mothers did round his way. Off they went. 'A late Ainsworth,' explained the housekeeper, righting the fern. 3 A New Spirit of the Age Downstairs, the Morning Post lay discarded by an uneaten breakfast. William sat brooding, his chair facing the window. There was a brown paper package in his lap. He started at the sound of the door. Was she not meant to see him in his sadness? 'Eliza! Miladies! There you are. I thought you'd abandoned me . . .' The dogs arrived panting at his feet. He didn't look down or stroke them. 'Well, I'm afraid it'll be a week at least, William.' 'Hmmm?' 'The ceiling. Tobin only sent one boy.' 'Ah.' As she reached for his breakfast things he put a hand out to stop her: 'Leave that. Sarah will take that.' Then stood up, and seemed to glide away in his slippers, silent as a shade. Something was wrong. Her first instinct was to check the newspaper. She read the front page and scanned the rest. No friends suddenly dead or disturbingly successful. No unusual or uniquely depressing news. More working men were to be allowed to vote. Criminals were no longer to be transported. The Claimant had been found not to speak a word of French, although the real Roger Tichborne grew up speaking it. She put everything back on the tray. As she understood it, Sarah's opinion was that breakfast trays were now beneath her dignity. Yet no maid had been hired to replace her, and so it fell to Mrs Touchet. Turning to leave, she tripped on something - the package. It was a book, unwrapped only so far as to reveal the title: A New Spirit of the Age , by R. H. Horne. It was a long time since she'd seen that book. Not quite long enough to forget it. She picked it up and looked furtively around the room - she hardly knew why. Opening it, she hoped she would be mistaken, or that possibly it was a new edition. But it was the very same volume of literary critiques, and with the same short, damning entry on her poor cousin, towards the back. Twenty years ago, the publication of this book had merely darkly clouded one dinner party and mildly spoiled the morning after. Back then William was not so easily deflated. She brought the two sides of the torn brown paper together. No postmark. But it was addressed in a clear hand to the man whose life's work was summarized within as ' generally dull, except when it is revolting '. Excerpted from The Fraud: A Novel by Zadie Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.