The Thieves of Manhattan

The Thieves of Manhattan, by Adam Langer, Spiegel & Grau RRP$24, 259 pages

Not many novels begin with quotes from both the author Jorge Luis Borges and the 1980s pop band Milli Vanilli (“Girl, you know it’s true...”). That unlikely pairing gives the flavour of Adam Langer’s comic novel, inspired by the various fake memoir scandals of recent years, most notably that surrounding James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces.

Ian Minot works the day shift in a Manhattan coffee shop and spends his evenings writing earnest short stories about his dull life. Is it any surprise that he develops a long-distance hatred of Blade Markham, whose barely believable memoir about hanging out with LA gangsters has made him a fixture in the bestseller charts? So when Ian is offered the chance to write his own fake memoir, he is drawn into an ethical dilemma.

There may be more profound books about the blurring of fact and fiction, but they probably wouldn’t be as funny.