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Trust: A Fractured Fable
A darkly funny memoir and investigation into the charms and crimes of the untrustworthy
Romance scams, pyramid schemes, bogus debts and fake news, the world is awash with confidence tricksters and swindlers. But what happens if the fraudster is your lover?
It has been said that trust is a risk masquerading as a promise and, as Hemingway suggested, 'The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them'. Once we have fallen under the spell of malevolent hucksters, their power is real, as is the loss of self and hope when the spell breaks.
A hybrid memoir and a personal detective story, Trust is an exploration of what it means to trust, why we trust, and what happens when trust is betrayed. With a particular view to fraud and corruption within the hallowed walls of sandstone universities, Ryckmans brings to light the oft subtle, brutal nature of control that fraudsters have over their victims, and shows the deep impacts their actions have on others personally and professionally. The cover up -- sometimes said to be worse than the crime -- has insidious effects.
Trust is a fractured fable. It is darkly funny, wistful, and spare in tone and approach.
'The extraordinary story of an Irish Ripley, a fraudster and conman who fooled central banks, elite universities, major companies and scores of individual business leaders is in itself captivating and astounding, but he also plied a series of smart sophisticated women with seductive invitations, extravagant gifts and lashings of Yeats and, as Jeanne Ryckmans so deftly reconstructs, it all fell apart when he got violent with her.' - Anne Summers, author of Damned Whores and God's Police
'I read it in one sitting and loved loved loved it. Truly. It is beautifully and cleverly told, and the various devices -- the poetry, the nicknames, the world-wandering, the little hands, the carpets, Paddington -- all work splendidly; - Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman
'Vivid and transparent. Deft. I was absolutely hooked from the first paragraph, and the creeping sense that something was amiss was masterful. The fundamental power is the unflinching basis in truth.' - Professor Joanna Benjamin, Emeritus Professor of Law, The London School of Economics
Romance scams, pyramid schemes, bogus debts and fake news, the world is awash with confidence tricksters and swindlers. But what happens if the fraudster is your lover?
It has been said that trust is a risk masquerading as a promise and, as Hemingway suggested, 'The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them'. Once we have fallen under the spell of malevolent hucksters, their power is real, as is the loss of self and hope when the spell breaks.
A hybrid memoir and a personal detective story, Trust is an exploration of what it means to trust, why we trust, and what happens when trust is betrayed. With a particular view to fraud and corruption within the hallowed walls of sandstone universities, Ryckmans brings to light the oft subtle, brutal nature of control that fraudsters have over their victims, and shows the deep impacts their actions have on others personally and professionally. The cover up -- sometimes said to be worse than the crime -- has insidious effects.
Trust is a fractured fable. It is darkly funny, wistful, and spare in tone and approach.
'The extraordinary story of an Irish Ripley, a fraudster and conman who fooled central banks, elite universities, major companies and scores of individual business leaders is in itself captivating and astounding, but he also plied a series of smart sophisticated women with seductive invitations, extravagant gifts and lashings of Yeats and, as Jeanne Ryckmans so deftly reconstructs, it all fell apart when he got violent with her.' - Anne Summers, author of Damned Whores and God's Police
'I read it in one sitting and loved loved loved it. Truly. It is beautifully and cleverly told, and the various devices -- the poetry, the nicknames, the world-wandering, the little hands, the carpets, Paddington -- all work splendidly; - Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman
'Vivid and transparent. Deft. I was absolutely hooked from the first paragraph, and the creeping sense that something was amiss was masterful. The fundamental power is the unflinching basis in truth.' - Professor Joanna Benjamin, Emeritus Professor of Law, The London School of Economics
- GenresNonfictionMemoir
107 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 1, 2023
7 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 26, 2024
What is so important about “Trust”, and in turn the conversation it evokes, is how it makes the reader think about the concept of trust for themselves.
One can only imagine the strength required to give voice to experience the way Ryckmans has, but it will help so many people feel seen and as if they’ve finally been heard and believed.
Although at times devastating, this is an exceptionally well written and essential book.
Above all else, this is startlingly human work, and a deeply moving story of survival and reclamation.
One can only imagine the strength required to give voice to experience the way Ryckmans has, but it will help so many people feel seen and as if they’ve finally been heard and believed.
Although at times devastating, this is an exceptionally well written and essential book.
Above all else, this is startlingly human work, and a deeply moving story of survival and reclamation.
July 7, 2024
I liked this slim book about a charlatan professor whose specialty subject is ethics. I’m drawn to scammer stories and this one works because of the honesty of the narrator who was taken in by the man for quite a while. It revolves around the very interesting question: “How exactly is it that an independent, strong-minded, clever woman can become involved in an abusive relationship?” And of course the associated question – could this ever happen to me?
The book opens on the remote island of Inishbofin off the west coast of Ireland. It has been the locale for a range of deluded or romantic assignations. After Ryckmans meets the Irish Professor (as the conman is known throughout the book) in Sydney, he persiuades her to meet him in Inishbofin (a place where he will later buy land, not pay for it, start building a house and not complete it, and generally leave behind his usual trail of destruction.)
For a while their relationship seems OK – though Ryckmans outlines the Irish Professor’s love of luxury, his apparent massive sense of entitlement, his flamboyant seduction of people and institutions, and his ability to wriggle out of any difficult situation, leaving someone else to pay the bill. Gradually though, she sees that he is not what he seems, as the Professor’s life spirals downwards out of control. It is a very carefully told story, one reviewer notes: “For most of the book we are not privy to Ryckmans’s heartache, nor to the sensual or romantic sides of the fractured fairy tale—only the flashy cars, five-star hotels, business-class flights and recycled pick-up gambits.” (https://westerlymag.com.au/review-of-...)
The reviewer goes on to note: “Only after presenting us with all of the evidence does she make a victim impact statement: ‘I understood that many months of his constant chiselling away had left me broken. I felt the sting of shame. The mounting tension and threat of explosion had had its desired effect’ (99).” I liked the restraint of it. I also like the playful elements - such as the “nomenclature given to all the characters. Thus, we have an Important British Banker, the Almost Third Wife, the Clever Psychiatrist and the Playwright, to name but a few – giving a somewhat ironic twist to the concept of Happy Families.” (https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...)
As well as wreaking personal chaos, he Irish Professor effectively stole money from several Australian universities. Ryckmans outlines the inadequate responses of the universities who covered for the Irish Professor to save face, thus fracturing our trust in these taxpayer-funded institutions. Its preffy outrageous what he got away with. Appartently “The Financial Review’s Michael Roddan outed Ryckmans’ Professor as Justin O’Brien, a former Monash academic who lectured to the theme of ‘Rebuilding trust’ at a Deloitte banking summit in 2018 and was party to $2.5 million worth of Australian Research Council–funded projects.” (https://westerlymag.com.au/review-of-...)
This is part of what AFR says about the context for Justin O’Brien’s work: “O’Brien’s academic work at the time chimed with an increasingly urgent international discussion about trust in business and government following the global financial crisis and, locally, through the Hayne royal commission. His work examined the loss of trust across institutions in an age of social media and political populism, probing how it was that corporations had lost the trust of those they were meant to serve.” (https://www.afr.com/companies/financi...)
This book reminded me of another recent read about a duplicitous man, the memoir ‘Loving my Lying, Dying Cheating Husband’ by Kerstin Pliz – but the actions of the Irish Professor are even more ambitious in terms of scale and impact. I agree with this review:” Trust: A fractured fable is narrative non-fiction that’s written in clear-eyed, unsentimental prose and reads like a psychological thriller.” (https://readingmattersblog.com/2023/0...)
The book opens on the remote island of Inishbofin off the west coast of Ireland. It has been the locale for a range of deluded or romantic assignations. After Ryckmans meets the Irish Professor (as the conman is known throughout the book) in Sydney, he persiuades her to meet him in Inishbofin (a place where he will later buy land, not pay for it, start building a house and not complete it, and generally leave behind his usual trail of destruction.)
For a while their relationship seems OK – though Ryckmans outlines the Irish Professor’s love of luxury, his apparent massive sense of entitlement, his flamboyant seduction of people and institutions, and his ability to wriggle out of any difficult situation, leaving someone else to pay the bill. Gradually though, she sees that he is not what he seems, as the Professor’s life spirals downwards out of control. It is a very carefully told story, one reviewer notes: “For most of the book we are not privy to Ryckmans’s heartache, nor to the sensual or romantic sides of the fractured fairy tale—only the flashy cars, five-star hotels, business-class flights and recycled pick-up gambits.” (https://westerlymag.com.au/review-of-...)
The reviewer goes on to note: “Only after presenting us with all of the evidence does she make a victim impact statement: ‘I understood that many months of his constant chiselling away had left me broken. I felt the sting of shame. The mounting tension and threat of explosion had had its desired effect’ (99).” I liked the restraint of it. I also like the playful elements - such as the “nomenclature given to all the characters. Thus, we have an Important British Banker, the Almost Third Wife, the Clever Psychiatrist and the Playwright, to name but a few – giving a somewhat ironic twist to the concept of Happy Families.” (https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...)
As well as wreaking personal chaos, he Irish Professor effectively stole money from several Australian universities. Ryckmans outlines the inadequate responses of the universities who covered for the Irish Professor to save face, thus fracturing our trust in these taxpayer-funded institutions. Its preffy outrageous what he got away with. Appartently “The Financial Review’s Michael Roddan outed Ryckmans’ Professor as Justin O’Brien, a former Monash academic who lectured to the theme of ‘Rebuilding trust’ at a Deloitte banking summit in 2018 and was party to $2.5 million worth of Australian Research Council–funded projects.” (https://westerlymag.com.au/review-of-...)
This is part of what AFR says about the context for Justin O’Brien’s work: “O’Brien’s academic work at the time chimed with an increasingly urgent international discussion about trust in business and government following the global financial crisis and, locally, through the Hayne royal commission. His work examined the loss of trust across institutions in an age of social media and political populism, probing how it was that corporations had lost the trust of those they were meant to serve.” (https://www.afr.com/companies/financi...)
This book reminded me of another recent read about a duplicitous man, the memoir ‘Loving my Lying, Dying Cheating Husband’ by Kerstin Pliz – but the actions of the Irish Professor are even more ambitious in terms of scale and impact. I agree with this review:” Trust: A fractured fable is narrative non-fiction that’s written in clear-eyed, unsentimental prose and reads like a psychological thriller.” (https://readingmattersblog.com/2023/0...)
January 17, 2024
This is a wry, truthful, painful account of an intelligent woman being comprehensively conned by a charismatic man, but it isn’t only that. It’s an indictment of the system that allows people like this to thrive. The academic institutions scammed by the Irish Professor prefer to avoid embarrassment by keeping quiet, even as they observe the fraudster going on to other prestigious positions. Still worse, it’s public money – sought-after research grants and scholarships – that’s funding his lifestyle. Governments and corporations are only too eager to hand out money to the “business” stream of academia, and nobody looks too closely at how the money is used once the big public announcement is made. As Ryckmans sums in up in a later article (see link below) “Australia’s universities have been corporatised and compromised, and business schools are at the vanguard of academic capture.”
When Ryckmans first met the Irish Professor he was, in his own words, “a distinguished scholar of financial regulation” with a CV covering professorships at various universities and a network of prestigious international connections. His particular interest was the “Trust Project” whose aim was to improve public trust in corporations by embedding integrity, responsibility and accountability (individual and corporate) and he had secured funding from several universities for this project. He was constantly flying first-class around the world to meet with high-profile collaborators, and he swept Ryckmans up into this glamorous world and into his private life on the Irish island of Inishbofin. He told her, as he told numerous other women, that he had never before taken a woman there. And of course, as he was Irish, there were large dollops of blarney and quoting of Yeats.
Ryckmans is reticent about her early feelings for the IP. It’s a story of inexorable entrapment rather than romantic effusion, and all the more powerful for it. It’s a very well-constructed narrative, moving between past and present and weaving in the story of another charismatic egotist, the Irish poet Tom MacIntyre who abandoned his family to spend five years on Inishbofin with a young woman who had been his student. Deborah Tall later wrote "The Island Of The White Cow" about her years with MacIntyre.
I recently heard a discussion about sincere liars as opposed to conscious hypocrites. The IP certainly qualifies as a sincere liar. His obsession with the need for trust at all levels of life is in proportion to his flouting of it at every level of his own life, but you never get the impression that this is hypocrisy. Rather, he’s the person who can believe two opposite things at the same time without any sense of discord. He’s the person who believes every different version of his own life that he tells himself. He’s an instinctive liar whose mind-processes are based on self-justification and a reinventing of the past. And you’d have to say there’s an element of mania here. The sheer mental and emotional energy involved in managing such a frenetic life is exhausting to most of us.
A worthy addition to our library of Frauds, but a little different from the others, who seem to have created themselves out of nowhere. The Irish Professor would have been a chancer at any time. He was incubated and rewarded by a system that is a product of our own times, a system that is ongoing and unchallenged.
When Ryckmans first met the Irish Professor he was, in his own words, “a distinguished scholar of financial regulation” with a CV covering professorships at various universities and a network of prestigious international connections. His particular interest was the “Trust Project” whose aim was to improve public trust in corporations by embedding integrity, responsibility and accountability (individual and corporate) and he had secured funding from several universities for this project. He was constantly flying first-class around the world to meet with high-profile collaborators, and he swept Ryckmans up into this glamorous world and into his private life on the Irish island of Inishbofin. He told her, as he told numerous other women, that he had never before taken a woman there. And of course, as he was Irish, there were large dollops of blarney and quoting of Yeats.
Ryckmans is reticent about her early feelings for the IP. It’s a story of inexorable entrapment rather than romantic effusion, and all the more powerful for it. It’s a very well-constructed narrative, moving between past and present and weaving in the story of another charismatic egotist, the Irish poet Tom MacIntyre who abandoned his family to spend five years on Inishbofin with a young woman who had been his student. Deborah Tall later wrote "The Island Of The White Cow" about her years with MacIntyre.
I recently heard a discussion about sincere liars as opposed to conscious hypocrites. The IP certainly qualifies as a sincere liar. His obsession with the need for trust at all levels of life is in proportion to his flouting of it at every level of his own life, but you never get the impression that this is hypocrisy. Rather, he’s the person who can believe two opposite things at the same time without any sense of discord. He’s the person who believes every different version of his own life that he tells himself. He’s an instinctive liar whose mind-processes are based on self-justification and a reinventing of the past. And you’d have to say there’s an element of mania here. The sheer mental and emotional energy involved in managing such a frenetic life is exhausting to most of us.
A worthy addition to our library of Frauds, but a little different from the others, who seem to have created themselves out of nowhere. The Irish Professor would have been a chancer at any time. He was incubated and rewarded by a system that is a product of our own times, a system that is ongoing and unchallenged.
June 8, 2024
How interesting. Especially the n/a reviewer. Well well well.
N/a reviewer claims the author is lying, that the Irish Professor needs sympathy as he's 'unwell' - even though he should be held accountable of his action. Yeah. Whatever.
Look at the trail of destruction this man has left with family, friends, colleagues and lovers. A lifetime of subterfuge, how exhausting and what a life. Everyone else to blame but himself, and oh, of course the women, the women!!! It's their fault. Yeah.
N/A reviewer claims the author is angry? Probably at herself, for being scammed and feeling shame, and also for the fact the Irish Professor was not held accountable for his actions to the academic institutions - shifted around many over many years to develop and keep the scam going (remind you of anything??). And so what if she's angry, this is her story, the Irish Professor is free to write his own. Go ahead.
Whilst it's a short novel, it certainly includes a lot, from other people who met and interacted with the Irish Professor. It certainly is a wild mess he's created. HE'S created.
N/a reviewer claims the author is lying, that the Irish Professor needs sympathy as he's 'unwell' - even though he should be held accountable of his action. Yeah. Whatever.
Look at the trail of destruction this man has left with family, friends, colleagues and lovers. A lifetime of subterfuge, how exhausting and what a life. Everyone else to blame but himself, and oh, of course the women, the women!!! It's their fault. Yeah.
N/A reviewer claims the author is angry? Probably at herself, for being scammed and feeling shame, and also for the fact the Irish Professor was not held accountable for his actions to the academic institutions - shifted around many over many years to develop and keep the scam going (remind you of anything??). And so what if she's angry, this is her story, the Irish Professor is free to write his own. Go ahead.
Whilst it's a short novel, it certainly includes a lot, from other people who met and interacted with the Irish Professor. It certainly is a wild mess he's created. HE'S created.
Read
January 29, 2024A complex and heartbreaking study of an abusive man, written from the point of view of one of his victims. Typically, he is charming, convincing, flattering, irrational, erudite, violent, denying, contrite – not just with women but with institutions that he defrauds.
When she first meets him he tells her about his appalling relationships with his children. Warning warning! But like so many women in these situations, she is made to feel foolish, and not trust her own understanding.
Jeanne Ryckmans handles this difficult material with a cool, dispassionate style. This distance is compounded by the cute trick of giving all the characters ironic or mocking names, which also saved her from litigation no doubt. But I often found myself searching for the searing anger.
When she first meets him he tells her about his appalling relationships with his children. Warning warning! But like so many women in these situations, she is made to feel foolish, and not trust her own understanding.
Jeanne Ryckmans handles this difficult material with a cool, dispassionate style. This distance is compounded by the cute trick of giving all the characters ironic or mocking names, which also saved her from litigation no doubt. But I often found myself searching for the searing anger.
January 12, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
The word bamboozled comes to mind. How does one man manage to fool so many people, when his expertise/passion is in trust and ethics?
The man named the Irish Professor throughout clearly has issues. Racking up bills on university dime in swanky hotels and restaurants, a womaniser and a fiend. I just cannot comprehend how this really happened. Jeanne Ryckmans is to be commended for the bravery to tell this story.
I listened to the audio of this book, read by the author and by a man with a wonderful Irish accent.
The word bamboozled comes to mind. How does one man manage to fool so many people, when his expertise/passion is in trust and ethics?
The man named the Irish Professor throughout clearly has issues. Racking up bills on university dime in swanky hotels and restaurants, a womaniser and a fiend. I just cannot comprehend how this really happened. Jeanne Ryckmans is to be commended for the bravery to tell this story.
I listened to the audio of this book, read by the author and by a man with a wonderful Irish accent.
October 29, 2023
This is quite an extraordinary story. Part memoir, part true crime, it documents how the author was taken in, and ultimately duped by, a charming 'Irish Professor', an expert in 'trust'. This short book moves along quickly, and I found it hard to put down. The language is spare, subtle, even poetic. It had a profound, slightly unsettling effect - it's quite a powerful commentary on trust, deceit and the willingness of major institutions to look away.
March 2, 2024
I listened to this on audiobook first, then sat down and read it properly. Trust: A Fractured Fable certainly rewards careful attention. Stylish prose and careful structuring support the exploration of one of those “it could never happen to me” topics. The kind of thing where even the well-meaning often err on the side of blaming and shaming the victim. Lots to think about here.
April 3, 2024
I story about entrapment by a con artist who pretended to be a researcher on 'Trust' in corporate life. He managed to live the high life courtesy of university credit cards (and some women). The universities are shown to be corrupt, and unwilling to do their due diligence. A damning indictment of them.
June 9, 2024
A story about the author's experience with a conman. It was obvious from near the start that he was a conman and the author herself wonders why she persisted. Credit to her for writing about it and it does give some insights into academia but I found this book rather annoying and didn't like the way she talked about her characters.
June 29, 2023
The author has mastered the art of 'show not tell'. A gripping tale of romantic grifting that will resonate with every woman. Subtle, nuanced writing that trusts the reader to join the dots. A triumph!
January 20, 2024
An unusual memoir - well written in an interesting manner.
What makes us trust or distrust?
Seems some folk are born with a BS meter and others are far too trusting, choosing to believe only the best despite all indications to the contrary.
What makes us trust or distrust?
Seems some folk are born with a BS meter and others are far too trusting, choosing to believe only the best despite all indications to the contrary.
August 21, 2023
Beware the blarney.
November 26, 2025
A nicely written little novella. The fascinating story of the scammed and her scammer.
March 8, 2024
The Tinder Swindler meets The Banshees of Inisherin. A cautionary tale for women (and men) of a smooth talking academic conman and schemer. You could not make this up.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews