Any book, any book that calls itself The Fraud, operates under a slightly dubious premises. The reader is forced to ask themselves to what extent is the author having or performing some elaborate joke at their expense? This could be postmodernism at its worst. It may be rendered all the more so since Smith seems to be using a historic Victorian context to analyse (and satirise) still modern and sensitive tropes around the oratory and persuasive power of demagogues — Trump as the par excellence case study — and the manipulation/misunderstanding of racial differences. Maybe part of the problem is that I have little time for historic fiction (per Wolf Hall), but I found in this long (450-plus-page) novel that I struggled to engage with the characters or really care about their destinies. There were flashes of literary brilliance and insight from Smith, but these felt rather few and far between. I have preferred her other novels. 5/10.
By Zadie Smith