Faker

Faker by Gordon Korman (2024) is a middle grade novel that follows the son of a con artist as he grapples with the desire for an honest life and navigates the ethics of loving his family despite their criminal history. Faker, which received a positive reception and became a Junior Library Guild selection, examines the impact of Redefining a Personal Code of Ethics, The Tension Between Deception and Honesty, and The Damaging Effects of Class Differences. 

A New York Times best-selling Canadian author, Korman has penned over 100 books for young readers, which have sold over 30 million copies worldwide. At age 14, he published his debut novel, This Can’t Be Happening at McDonald Hall, and at age 17, he received the Air Canada Award for promising Canadian authors. His works include the best-selling Masterminds series, as well as titles in the popular 39 Clues series. Korman holds a degree in film-writing from New York University, and he currently writes full-time from his home in Long Island. 

This guide refers to the 2024 Kindle e-book edition.

Plot Summary

Faker follows 12-year-old Trey, whose last name has changed with every con job that his dad has run. As the story opens, Trey, his father, and his younger sister Arianna begin their latest job: selling the same show dog to several of the richer parents at Trey’s latest boarding school. For years, Trey has actively contributed to the family’s dishonest “business” of running confidence schemes; his main role is to make friends at elite schools so that his dad can steal money from their parents and then leave town before anyone realizes what has happened. When the family barely manages to get away with the show-dog con, Trey’s dad decides that their next con will involve a public school in a regular neighborhood, where they will be less conspicuous.

After enjoying a “vacation” at a fancy resort outside the United States where the cops cannot arrest them, Trey’s family moves to the Pointe—a fancy neighborhood overlooking a lake in Boxelder, Tennessee. When Trey immediately meets Logan, the son of another family in the Pointe, he earns praise from his dad and a vow from Arianna that she, not Trey, will be the one to make this con succeed. Although life in Boxelder is very different from the boarding schools that Trey has attended in the past, he finds himself settling in, and he begins to believe that this neighborhood could be his forever home if his family’s confidence schemes wouldn’t eventually force them to flee.

After doing a reconnaissance of the neighborhood, Trey’s dad decides that the perfect con will be to sell shares for a nonexistent prototype of an electric car that he names “El Capitan.” As Trey’s father organizes the con, Trey continues to get more involved in the Boxelder community. Specifically, he joins a club run by a girl named Kaylee, who is determined to clean up the polluted Albion Pond neighborhood. Trey’s social studies class also starts a unit on ethics, and Trey finds himself considering his father’s criminal activities through this new lens. Throughout Trey’s life, his father has always told him that the family only steals from people who can afford to lose their money; his father also insists that they are just doing what they must in order to survive. However, as Trey becomes more socially aware, he can no longer take his father’s word at face value.

While visiting Albion Pond with Logan, Kaylee, and other friends from school, Logan falls into the brackish water. The kids call their parents to come get them, and Trey’s dad drives up in a shiny red electric car that draws everyone’s attention. He introduces the car to the community as a prototype called El Capitan and claims that the company is looking for investors. When a local newspaper runs an article about Kaylee’s Albion Pond project, it is revealed that an El Capitan Motors factory will soon be built over the pond. Suddenly, Trey finds himself caught between two opposing forces: his loyalty to his family and his desire to help Kaylee.

Soon, Trey starts receiving emails from an unknown sender who seems to know that El Capitan is a fake and that Trey and his family are confidence tricksters. Trey knows that if he reveals these emails to his dad, the family will leave town. Although he feels like he is betraying his dad, Trey keeps the emails a secret because he doesn’t want to leave this community. As the tone of the emails escalates, Trey finally asks what the sender wants. When the sender tells Trey to meet them, Trey goes to the meeting place only to be stood up. As he explores the neighborhood, he realizes that it is near Arianna’s school. At home, he finds the mysterious emails in Arianna’s sent folder and confronts her about them. Arianna explains that she sent them in order to prove she is a better con artist than Trey is. She then declares that if Trey tells on her, she will tell their dad that Trey kept the emails a secret.

On the day of a scheduled fundraiser for Albion Pond, Trey’s dad insists that his children accompany him to a party at the richest home in the Pointe. Although Trey promised Kaylee that he would be at the fundraiser, he cannot let his dad down because the El Capitan job is shaping up to be their biggest con yet. At the party, Trey’s guilt eats at him until he decides that Kaylee’s friendship is worth more than the con. He leaves to attend the fundraiser, and once he is there, Kaylee’s dad asks him to set up a meeting with his dad about investing in El Capitan. As a teacher, Kaylee’s dad isn’t wealthy and stands to lose his life savings. Later, when Trey explains the man’s financial situation to his dad, his dad dismisses it as unimportant, admitting that people who aren’t rich sometimes get caught up in his schemes.

Following this discussion, Trey’s world crumbles because he realizes that his family’s accepted “truths” are really lies. He is determined to save Kaylee’s dad from the con, but he doesn’t know how. That night, Logan visits Trey, revealing that Logan’s family members are also con artists and that the FBI is in town, looking for them. Logan says that he wanted to tell Trey the truth and say goodbye. The next day, Logan is gone, and Trey realizes that he can’t keep living like this. He drives El Capitan into the lake and tells his father that he is leaving the family. Trey’s dad says that he has lied about many things but never about loving his kids. He and Trey devise a plan to refund the El Capitan investors and stay in Boxelder, ending their criminal lifestyle. Several months later, Albion Pond is rebuilt, and Trey finally feels at home.