Crazy? Naïve? Adventurous?: Mother in the Hands of an International Con Man

In 1966, when the author was in college, her cultured, ivy-league educated mother became involved with an international con man she believed to be a British spy. Falling under the spell of his impossible stories, she abandoned her family and joined this man in his life of petty crime, becoming his accomplice for seven years, hurting everyone who came into their paths. In Crazy? Naïve? Adventurous? the author pairs her own story with her mother’s memoir of the years she spent with this man. And in a Roshomon-like effect, her mother paints the events completely differently. She believes, even as she details the con games the two play, even as she writes her memoir, that her husband was a spy whose work was crucial to national security. In the author’s part of this book, we see her hurt and confusion as the events unfold and she tries to make sense of what is happening around her. In her mother’s part, the events the author sees are explained away, and we clearly see the mentality of someone who could be taken in by a con man. But because of the mother’s articulateness, we also get a glimpse into the mind of an abused spouse, one who still longs for her abuser—written in a way that few can.