Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Fiction & Related items

CONFIDENCE

R.A. Frumkin

Confidence is a psychologically twisty novel about two men involved in a long-con pyramid scheme who happen to also be lovers on the side.

Raphael Green and his subject, Orson Ortman, are lifelong friends, sometimes lovers, and partners in crime. Through the years, exploit after exploit, not only do they reach the upper echelons of self-made success, they grow closer and closer, too close, more self-obsessed and each-other-obsessed, more sinister. Before long, their greatest creation--an idea, a company, a lifestyle called NuLife - grows too big to fail. They IPO. A competitor shorts their stock. The FBI, seeing well beyond their scams, closes in on their trail.

Confidence is an exciting, brainy caper that thrills, captivates, and calls into question what it means to love, and what it means to sacrifice everything in pursuit of that love.

The book has great psychological twists and insights in the vein of Patricia Highsmith, but is also a compulsively readable thriller.

Rafael Frumkin is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Medill School of Journalism. His first novel, The Comedown, was published by Henry Holt in 2018 to critical acclaim. His Collection, Bugsy & Other Stories, is forthcoming. He lives with his partner, two cats, and one dog in Carbondale, Illinois, where he is an assistant professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University.

Available products
Book Published 2023-02-07 by Simon & Schuster
Book Published 2023-02-07 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

Frumkin has done it again in this fiendishly funny takedown of the American Dream. Confidence is a Gatsby for our golden age of grifters.

Speeding toward doom with barely contained glee, Confidence is a scathing social satire that lets no one off the hook - titans of industry, New Age devotees, techie acolytes, suburbanites, revolutionaries, the Dalai Lama - here everyone falls victim to the scam of corporate awakening masquerading as true bliss. Get in the Hummer limo, make your micro-dose into a macro, and prepare to flip off the cliff in this propulsive supply-side joyride.

Two boys meet at a camp for troubled kids who need to turn their lives around - it's not the slammer, but it's the last stop before it - and they start a scheme that indeed changes everything. Is it love? Is it lust? It's a good time, that's for sure.

Frumkin follows up his critically acclaimed debut The Comedown with Confidence, a biting satire about a pair of friends who start a company that promises consumers instant enlightenment for the rest of their lives... Over the course of the novel, as their hustles become increasingly complex, they veer closer and closer to a massive collapse from which they may never recover.

Theranos but make it gay. In this Ripley-esque romp, two men - occasional lovers - create a fake empire based entirely on their own charisma and an impossibly auspicious wellness product that promises bliss to those who use it.