THE CONFIDENCE-MAN

Part satire, part allegory, part hoax, The Confidence-Man is a slippery methaphysical comedy set on April Fool's Day aboard the Mississipi steamer Fidele. Through the conversations of his confidence men Melville explores America and American values, plays with theories of trust and trickery and finds form for the idea that, if our beliefs are shifting and uncertain, we at leas have fiction.