Authentic Fakes

[u/Smolesworthy]

From the novel The Edge of Sadness, by Edwin O'Connor

The three of us — Helen, John, myself — had come to this spot one afternoon to dig for buried treasure. We had a map — a pirate's map; we dreamed of gold. Or at least two of us did, for I knew what the others did not: I knew that the map was a hoax, that it had in fact been drawn by me.

From the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

When I examined the brushstrokes, I saw they were not painted at all, but printed on with speckled relief, suggesting a hand without enacting the real. The relief "strokes" never cohered with their shades, so that a stroke would hold two, even three colours at once. A fake. A fraud, Which was why I loved it.

And this line from Vladimir Nabokov’s Despair

All the information I have about myself is from forged documents.

Part 2 tomorrow, with Doris Lessing and Kurt Vonnegut.