New York Times review of Maria Konnikova’s Confidence Game fails to mention Herman Melville’s Confidence-Man and Thomas Mann’s Confidence Man

Today’s book review by Jennifer Senior fails to mention those two novels. This reflects a deficiency in the book under review, which cites Melville’s novel only in passing and does not even mention Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, both of which are discussed in this blog.

The aspect of the confidence game that these novels highlight is the confidence that the con man must have in his game: When the identity of the con man is a prime issue in the con, nothing can make the con man more convincing than his having an alternate personality who honestly believes that the false identity is true.