Duped: Compulsive Liars and How They Can Deceive You

- Blurb -

Why do some people lie habitually, even pathologically, and others don't? Why do we place a premium on honesty-and yet, we all lie? Is it human nature to lie?A thirty-ish woman waits in a restaurant, fiddling with happy family photographs. She always thought her father resembled Gregory Peck, that he could be president. She never dreamed that she would now be waiting to meet her father's other daughter, from his second, hidden family. A 23-year-old woman is awakened by her fiance, calling from the police station. He babbles about prostitutes, arrest, bail; about murder and mistakes. He will be found guilty of murdering two women, and will be dubbed the 'Craigslist Killer'. Seen as the clueless girlfriend, she will insist he is innocent, until even she no longer believes it. How can these people have been so misled? Were they weak and inclined to trust despite obvious lies?The stories sound crazy, straight out of a Netflix original: Friends, lovers, spouses, parents who aren't at all whom they seem. But they are all true, and there are many more like them. While leading a double life would seem to be the exclusive domain of psychopaths and undercover operatives, in fact, thousands of 'regular people' keep extraordinary secrets from those closest to them. Psychologists estimate that thousands of people live with one foot in two worlds.In Duped, Abby Ellin explores secret lives of compulsive liars, and the tragedy of those who trust them- who have experienced severe, prolonged betrayal-and the terrible impact on their sense of reality and their ability to trust ever again. Using interviews and her own experiences, Ellin offers us a shocking and intimate look not only at the damage that the duplicitous cause, but the painful reaction of a society that is all too quick to blame the believer.