Fake Accounts: A Novel
Lauren OylerA woman in a tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this “ absolutely brilliant take on the bizarre & despicable ways the internet has warped our perception of reality” (Elle, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year).
On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone & makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, & a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, & outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved—he was always a little distant—& she plots toend their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.
Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York & increasingly alienated from her friends & colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual?
Narrated with seductive confidence & subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self & community, delusions & gaslighting, & fiction & reality play out in the internet age.
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LAUREN OYLER’s essays on books & culture have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, London Review of Books, The Guardian, New York magazine’s The Cut, The New Republic, Bookforum, & elsewhere.