Book Review: “Confidence” by Rafael Frumkin

Confidence by Rafael Frumkin

“Confidence” as in “Confidence Men”.

Frumkin has a jolly old time with a story of two grifters who have considerable success selling dreams to Americans.  It’s a familiar story, a lot of it is right out of the headlines.  Frumpkin has fun grafting new age babel onto Silicon Valley hype, cult-y therapy stuff onto pyramid marketing, and plenty of media spinning and financial shenanigans. 

It would all be a nice, light little romantic comedy, if it weren’t so sad.

To make things a little different, the two founders are gay (closeted) and in love.  Or at least Ezra loves Orson.  And Ezra does it all for love.  He runs huge risks and could be on the hook for everything.  Orson looks like he may skate away untouched.

Ezra and Orson believe they are smart enough to get away with things.  And they certainly get away with a lot for a long time.  But Frumkin shows us at every step there are people who aren’t fooled, and who become intractable enemies. Over time, the empire of happy talk accumulates one disaster after another, until something eventually must break.

The worst thing is that between the Ezra’s secret love and the dishonesty of their scams, the bros destroy lives and personal relationships.  No matter how much money they accumulate, they find little happiness.  Quite the opposite.

You’ve heard it before.  Working women are advised, just don’t do romance at work.  He may be attractive, and you may think he loves you.  But he’s going to walk away unscathed, and you will lose everything.  It works the same way for a gay relationship.  You may think he loves you, but he’s going to leave you holding the bag, and you’ll lose everything.

Don’t do it. 

In fact, this whole book should be subtitled, “don’t try this at home”.  It’s almost a manual for what not to do.

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1. Rafael Frumkin, Confidence, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2023.

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