You can read “Confidence” with confidence you’ll enjoy it

Sophie Whitten | @SophieWhitten

While I was scrolling through a “Most Anticipated Books of 2023” list over winter break, a bright orange cover popped out at me. “Confidence,” the title said, and to my happy surprise, when my eyes fell to the author, I recognized the name.

A quick Google search informed me that the Rafael Frumkin who wrote the book is the same Professor Rafael Frumkin who teaches creative writing here at our very own Southern Illinois University. I pre-ordered a copy immediately.

A few days after the March 7 release date, I anxiously waited by the mailbox to receive the novel and began to read it the second it was in my hands.

The story follows Ezra Green, who is sent away to the Last Chance correctional camp for dealing “coke”— his father’s sudafed ground with sea salt, which he packaged and sold to anyone who believed it was really cocaine. While in the camp, he meets Orson Ortman.

From the moment Orson arrives at Last Chance, he takes a captivating command of the scene.

While Ezra is self-conscious and desperately wanting to fit in, Orson is self-assured and ambitious. The two quickly become a duo of grifters and continue their friendship and partnership even after they are released from Last Chance and eventually develop a romantic relationship.

Ezra and Orson start small, scamming internet shoppers out of $75 for a sweatshirt that was made from Fruit of the Loom shirts screen printed in their shared apartment, but quickly find themselves taking on larger hustles until it leads them to the creation of NuLife, a transformative spiritual experience.

Resembling a church revival, NuLife’s method of Synthesis is to “cleanse you of all the things in your body and mind that trouble you.” Orson calls individual people from the crowd to experience this tearful metamorphosis of self.

NuLife begins to thrive, developing into a much larger scheme than I had expected and the characters find themselves deeper and deeper in their lie until Orson begins to believe it himself.

The characters have such a compelling quality to them that you can’t help but to follow their journey developing an international scam.

From the beginning, Ezra is obsessed and insecure about his image. He has failing eyesight begin to see him as a Christ-like figure, reaching out to touch him as he passes.

The characters were so well developed that I would happily read another novel following how they grow from where we leave me almost a decade ago was that scrambling, if done effectively, can lead to hoarding.”

As the novel grew closer to the end, it became more and more action-packed and every page was filled with as much excitement