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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A powerful, richly layered investigative story for our times, drawing on the personal stories of the author and other women who have been drawn into relationships based on duplicity and false hope.
'Women the world over are brought up to hope, even expect, to find the man of their dreams and live happily ever after. When Stephanie Wood meets a former architect turned farmer she embarks on an exhilarating romance with him. He seems compassionate, loving, truthful. They talk about the future. She falls in love. She also becomes increasingly beset by anxiety at his frequent cancellations, no-shows and bizarre excuses. She starts to wonder, who is this man?
'When she ends the relationship Stephanie reboots her journalism skills and embarks on a romantic investigation. She discovers a story of mind-boggling duplicity and manipulation. She learns that the man she thought she was in love with doesn’t exist. She also finds she is not alone; that the world is full of smart people who have suffered at the hands of liars, cheats, narcissists, fantasists and phonies, people enormously skilled in the art of deception.
'In this brilliantly acute and broad-ranging book, Wood, an award-winning writer and journalist, has written a riveting, important account of contemporary love, and the resilience of those who have witnessed its darkest sides.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Adaptations
-
form
y
Fake
( dir. Emma Freeman
)
Australia
:
Kindling Pictures
Paramount Pictures
,
2024
26930354
2024
series - publisher
film/TV
Inspired by Stephanie Wood's non-fiction work Fake, the series follows magazine features writer Birdie Bell, who meets successful grazier Joe Burt on a dating app, only to realise that he isn't all he has claimed to be.
Notes
-
This book has been selected for Guardian Australia’s series The Unmissables, highlighting the most notable Australian books of the year.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Large print.
Works about this Work
-
Life Writing When the World Is Burning: The Year in
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Biography , vol. 43 no. 1 2020; (p. 1-8) 'It is no surprise that in Australia this year a great deal of life writing has continued to emerge in conjunction with pressing social and political issues. The ongoing national crises of refugee and asylum seeker policy, gendered abuse, and racial discrimination continue to surface in both political and literary arenas, while unprecedented bushfires have decimated the country, bringing climate change back onto the public agenda with new fury. The right of individuals to live with dignity, in safety, and free from fear—and the ongoing challenges to these rights suffered in public and domestic domains—is a connecting thread across the year’s life writing and a theme the genre is uniquely equipped to amplify.' (Introduction) -
Fake by Stephanie Wood Review – Unmissable Tale of Love, Lies and Revelation
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 July 2019;
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'Portrait of a serial fabulist, and a woman living in an era that pushes down hard on those who aren’t partnered off.'(Introduction)
-
In Plain Sight
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10 August 2019; (p. 18)
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'In the #MeToo movement’s early, giant-felling months, when every day seemed to yield a new scandal, with women across the globe uniting in anguish and fury, David Leser was shaken by his own obliviousness. “I thought I was awake to this rampaging male aggression,” he wrote at the time, “but the truth is I had absolutely no idea what women faced.” In the final days of an erratic 15-month relationship, Stephanie Wood could no longer ignore what some deep, limbic part of her brain had long suspected: her boyfriend was a conman, a pathological fantasist.' (Introduction)
-
Stephanie Wood : Fake
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 10-16 August 2019;
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'In 2014 the writer Stephanie Wood returned to what she calls the badlands of online dating. She ended up exchanging emails with “Joe”, who seemed gentle, uncomplicated and only a little bit of a dag. The emails developed into a date and then a romance that showed every sign of being love.' (Introduction)
-
After Being Catfished, I Lost Trust in the World – but I Am Anything but a Damaged Soul
2019
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 18 July 2019;'The author of Fake, Guardian Australia’s new Unmissable book, says her story is far more than ‘lonely childless woman who fell for a con artist’'
-
Stephanie Wood : Fake
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 10-16 August 2019;
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'In 2014 the writer Stephanie Wood returned to what she calls the badlands of online dating. She ended up exchanging emails with “Joe”, who seemed gentle, uncomplicated and only a little bit of a dag. The emails developed into a date and then a romance that showed every sign of being love.' (Introduction)
-
In Plain Sight
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10 August 2019; (p. 18)
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'In the #MeToo movement’s early, giant-felling months, when every day seemed to yield a new scandal, with women across the globe uniting in anguish and fury, David Leser was shaken by his own obliviousness. “I thought I was awake to this rampaging male aggression,” he wrote at the time, “but the truth is I had absolutely no idea what women faced.” In the final days of an erratic 15-month relationship, Stephanie Wood could no longer ignore what some deep, limbic part of her brain had long suspected: her boyfriend was a conman, a pathological fantasist.' (Introduction)
-
Fake by Stephanie Wood Review – Unmissable Tale of Love, Lies and Revelation
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 July 2019;
— Review of Fake 2019 single work autobiography'Portrait of a serial fabulist, and a woman living in an era that pushes down hard on those who aren’t partnered off.'(Introduction)
-
Sharing the Truth
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
(interviewer),
2019
single work
interview
— Appears in: Books + Publishing , June vol. 99 no. 2 2019; (p. 18-19) 'Fake is journalist Stephanie Wood's account of her relationship with a man who turned out to be not who he said he was, interweaved with expert opinion and testimony from fellow victims of online deceit. Reviewer Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen says Fake 'reads like a gripping thriller'. She spoke to the author.' -
After Being Catfished, I Lost Trust in the World – but I Am Anything but a Damaged Soul
2019
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 18 July 2019;'The author of Fake, Guardian Australia’s new Unmissable book, says her story is far more than ‘lonely childless woman who fell for a con artist’'
-
Life Writing When the World Is Burning: The Year in
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Biography , vol. 43 no. 1 2020; (p. 1-8) 'It is no surprise that in Australia this year a great deal of life writing has continued to emerge in conjunction with pressing social and political issues. The ongoing national crises of refugee and asylum seeker policy, gendered abuse, and racial discrimination continue to surface in both political and literary arenas, while unprecedented bushfires have decimated the country, bringing climate change back onto the public agenda with new fury. The right of individuals to live with dignity, in safety, and free from fear—and the ongoing challenges to these rights suffered in public and domestic domains—is a connecting thread across the year’s life writing and a theme the genre is uniquely equipped to amplify.' (Introduction)
