To understand the background for the story in My Life as a Fake, one must know the story of the Ern Malley affair. In Australia in 1944, an avant-garde poetry magazine received a set of poems from the sister of a man, Ern Malley, who had died from Graves disease. She said she didn't know much about poetry, but she thought his poems should at least be looked at to see if they had any merit. The publisher of the poetry magazine, thinking Ern Malley's poems to be the work of genius, published the set of poems known as The Darkening Ecliptic. Two poets then came forth and claimed to invent Ern Malley, his sister, and the nonsensical poetry which came from various sources to create a satire of post-modernist poetry. To add insult to injury, the publisher was prosecuted for obscene references in one of Ern Malley's poem.
Through "My Life as a Fake" takes awhile to build up a head of steam the energy you expend in the first half does payoff. The characters are viewed through a filmy haze that is at times frustrating, but succeeds by creating a feeling of mystery around each of the fictions that they have created for themselves. Everyone has a secret life and for one character in this book that secret self becomes flesh and bone, and, perhaps, more importantly a mirror in which the true selves of all the characters are revealed.
