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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2019, 368 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2020, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Jamie Chornoby
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At once a twisted psychological portrait of a woman crumbling under unimaginable pressure and a razor-sharp satire of the contemporary art scene, Fake Like Me is a dark, glamorous, and addictive story of good intentions gone awry, from the critically acclaimed author of I'll Eat When I'm Dead.
Carey Logan was the art world's genius wild child.
FAKE
I was a no-name painter clawing my way up behind her.
LIKE
When Carey died, she left a space that couldn't be filled. Except, maybe, by
ME
After a fire rips through her loft, destroying the seven billboard-size paintings meant for her first major exhibition, a young painter is left with an impossible task: recreate the lost artworks in just three months without getting caught - or ruin her fledgling career. Homeless and desperate, she begs her way into Pine City, an exclusive retreat in upstate New York notorious for three things: outrageous revelries, glamorous artists, and the sparkling black lake where brilliant prodigy Carey Logan drowned herself.
Taking up residence in Carey's former studio, the painter works with obsessive, delirious focus. But when she begins to uncover strange secrets at Pine City and falls hard for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, a single thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan?
Pine City took no interest in me until they knew who I was and saw for themselves what kind of paintings I made. This was exactly what I expected—what I'd grown to expect from everyone else— and it didn't bother me in the slightest.
For what is the point of a career, if not to legitimize yourself ? The point of a career as an artist, you might say, if you are
lucky enough to have one, is to express yourself. Sure. Of course. Self-expression is the thrust of it. But it also becomes about identification; it becomes the bedrock of who you are as a person. I think there is something about accomplishment—where you be- come so embittered by the realities of how hard it is to make it, to get anywhere at all, even to a place where you're broke and living in a rotting shack in upstate New York and sleeping on a borrowed fifty-year-old mattress—that it is no longer possible to connect emotionally with anyone who had it easier than you or, more particularly, differently from...
Barbara Bourland's voice is sharp and satirical. She nudges readers to think about weighty topics: the formation of identity, the commodification of people, the desire to succeed, the pressure to be authentic and the potentially devastating consequences of greed. Fake Like Me is an unconventional thriller with an unreliable narrator that demands the reader's full attention, but provides plenty of rewards in exchange...continued
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(Reviewed by Jamie Chornoby).
Lisa Gabriele, author of The Winters
A ridiculously propulsive page turner. Barbara Bourland has written a 'du Maurier-esque' literary thriller about sexual jealousy and artistic legacy, a gorgeously scathing critique of the New York art scene, and a warning about the deadly consequences of stifling female expression. Could. Not. Put. It. Down. Louise O'Neill, author of Only Ever Yours
With her trademark flair and razor-sharp attention to detail, Barbara Bourland offers the reader an incisive exploration of the tension between the desire to make art and the desire to make money. Fake Like Me is satirical, brilliantly realized, and has a twist you simply won't see coming...
In Fake Like Me, author Barbara Bourland alludes to artist Lee Lozano (1930-1999) and her elusive, controversial final project called Dropout Piece. This piece of performance art was Lozano's act of withdrawing from the art world in order to be an outsider. She slipped into isolation through the end of her life, pushing the boundaries of lived art, performance art, and conceptual art. Bourland considers Lozano's unusual project, and how her rigorous, defiant act might have influenced artists that came after her.
To understand what inspired Dropout Piece and why it was important to Lozano to remove herself from social spheres, it is necessary to review her short and strange history as an artist. Most of her work was created within the ...
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