Book Review: Confidence by Rafael Frumkin

I fully expected a searing indictment of capitalism in this novel about two boys who grow up to be high-tech grifters—and I certainly got that—but I was surprised and even more impressed by the tenderness of the queer love story at the heart of this fast-paced and truly funny novel.

Ezra Green has always been small for his age. With bad teeth and worse eyesight, he manages to not be picked on in high school by transforming himself into a dealer of contraband items. When he’s busted for dealing what his gullible classmates thought were drugs but were actually Sudafeds cut with salt, he’s sent to a pricey reform camp his striving parents can barely afford in lieu of juvenile detention. It’s there he meets the charismatic Orson Ortman, with whom he strikes up a lifelong friendship, and more.

Once the two have graduated high school, they decide to move in together. Talking about business opportunities soon has them running Internet scams, as they create different personas and begin running short and long cons. But it’s while working at a classy hotel, catering to the rich and privileged, that the seed of their biggest project is sown: a faith-based process called Synthesis that allows practitioners to find a state of inner peace by blending their bad memories and thoughts with the good. Their wealthy clientele absolutely eats it up, though not everyone in their audiences falls for their shtick. Ezra is caught off-guard when a fashion designer they’ve been trying to influence corners him later for a private conversation:

“Relax, I’m not going to expose you or whatever it is you’re worried about. I think you’re both very smart. I admire what you do. [Y]ou know your audience, you know their weaknesses, and you exploit them brilliantly. I’m not at all different from you, Ezra. I know people want to look good. They want to conceal their flaws, and I design clothes that do just that for people of both genders and everything in between. And I sell those clothes at prices that are quintuple the manufacturing price. And it has become a sign of sophistication and wealth and importance to own my clothes. [Y]ou and Orson know very well how capitalism works, and so do I.”

As Synthesis grows bigger, Ezra and Orson grapple with the philosophies of capitalism vs. the ethics of their fund-raising methods. Perhaps inevitably, they prioritize their self-interest, growing Synthesis from a self-help program to a highly sought-after wearable to, ultimately, an upstate New York compound where adherents can pay thousands of dollars to learn the ways to inner peace. Orson thrives in the spotlight, which Ezra works hard to keep focused on his charming, magnetic friend and sometimes-lover. Over the years, their relationship has changed and grown, though one thing remains constant—Ezra loves Orson with all of his soul, and would do anything to keep him happy:

Orson was profiled in major magazines and made several TV appearances. It was so satisfying reading about him and watching him onscreen: this was him at least bored, his most happy. He wanted to be adored and here the world was, adoring him. He spent weeks flying around the country, which meant we saw each other rarely, but it also meant that he saw Emily rarely, too. And of Emily and me, who was it who had built a kingdom for him? Who was it who made him happiest?

Emily is, unfortunately, the straight woman Orson is romantically involved with, much to Ezra’s deeply buried fury. Not helping matters is the fact that Ezra’s eyesight, already poor to begin with, keeps deteriorating. With Orson retreating more and more to the compound and Ezra left to run their multimillion dollar company on his own, the stress begins to get to him. Add to that the almost absurdist pressures of pleasing fellow grifter tech moguls, trying to set up shop in restive foreign countries, and defending the company from charges of fraud by everyone from disgruntled exes to activist investors, and it’s a wonder Ezra doesn’t snap. But something has to give, and secrets can only stay buried for so long.

The greatest achievement of Confidence is, in my opinion, the way it shows how grift is merely another survival strategy in a world of rampant capitalism, an ideology that promotes the hoarding of wealth due to a false assumption of scarcity that skews the ideas people have of success and the attainment thereof. Rafael Frumkin drolly points out the similarities between what Ezra and Orson are doing and what other promoters of feel-good-programs—whether it be in the religion, fashion, or technology spheres—espouse. Where, he asks, is the line between guru and criminal?

Confidence deftly answers that question, while also presenting one of the most weirdly sympathetic love stories I’ve ever read. With plot elements that are clear parodies of real-life hucksters and scams, this is a wild joyride of a novel that pulls no punches while also reminding us that there are real, damaged people at the heart of these stories. Not every grifter is an unfeeling tech bro looking only to make themselves richer in order to feed an endlessly gaping hole in their self-esteem. Con artists are criminals, yes, but their prominence now in the early 21st century is only one symptom of a system in desperate need of reform.