{"id":21631,"date":"2011-10-04T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=21631"},"modified":"2011-09-29T15:08:11","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T19:08:11","slug":"fake-paintings-perfume-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/04\/fake-paintings-perfume-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake Paintings; Perfume Tester"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>

Jean-Francois Millet, Peasant Spreading Manure<\/em> (detail), 1855, oil on canvas. <\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most dust jackets list only literary accomplishments, but I\u2019ve always been a fan of offbeat author bios. So I asked some of my favorite writers to describe their early jobs.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>M. J. Hyland:<\/strong> From the age of eighteen to twenty-one, I worked any job I could get my hands on. One of these jobs was selling fake paintings door-to-door. There were four of us in the crew. We were taken out each night in the company car\u2014a white minivan\u2014and dropped on suburban street corners with black folio bags. I\u2019d been instructed to pretend I was the artist.<\/p>\n

My first night was the one I remember best. The suburb was a newly built estate, each house a mirror of its neighbor. The grass hadn\u2019t grown on the front lawns yet, and there were cars in all the newly paved driveways\u2014not flashy cars, but not beat-up Holdens either. I walked to the door of a house and knocked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry to bother you at teatime,\u201d I said, \u201cbut my name\u2019s Marcia Bradshaw and I\u2019m an art student at university. I\u2019m going from door to door to see if I can sell some of my work.\u201d I unzipped the bag and took out a painting. \u201cI need to raise some money so I can finish my degree,\u201d I said. \u201cMy parents have no money and my scholarship only lasted two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life is ruthless, and its bestowal of fortune arbitrary and capricious. I\u2019d been born to morons and mine was a shabby life. I stood on this woman\u2019s doorstep and told the lie about the paintings as easily as I did because, although it was a lie, it was also true. I believed my own lies and told them well. I wanted money, and, like my criminal father, I wanted it the easy way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The woman invited me in and I sat on the new settee. I went on lying about the paintings. I said I\u2019d been around Australia, hitchhiking, and had painted by the side of the road. It had taken me nearly a year. About a half-hour later, the woman\u2019s husband came in from work, his suit jacket over his arm, his tie undone. I told him the same story from the beginning. He asked questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you been studying?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are your favorite artists?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much do the materials cost?\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d been caught, but crossed my legs and went on lying. When the woman asked me how much the painting of the windmill cost, I told her I had no fixed price in mind. It was a matter of how much they were prepared to spend. The husband said, \u201cHow about fifty. Would fifty dollars be enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d be fine,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The woman went to her handbag, which was on the table at the end of the settee. \u201cHow about eighty dollars,\u201d she said, \u201cthat\u2019s all I have in my purse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The company that ran the paintings scam was later exposed for fraud on a popular Australian TV show called The Hinch Show<\/em>, in a segment called The Shame Files. When I was twenty-one, three years after I sold the fake paintings, I worked for that same TV show as an assistant director. That was the last job I did before I decided to study law, and the last job I was sacked from.<\/p>\n

Marie Darrieussecq:<\/strong> I was a test consumer for perfumes in toilets. Advertising executives watched my reactions through a two-way mirror\u2014not <\/em>in the toilets.<\/p>\n

Chris Flynn is the\u00a0books editor at <\/em>The Big Issue<\/a> and the fiction editor at <\/em>Australian Book Review<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Most dust jackets list only literary accomplishments, but I\u2019ve always been a fan of offbeat author bios. So I asked some of my favorite writers to describe their early jobs. M. J. Hyland: From the age of eighteen to twenty-one, I worked any job I could get my hands on. One of these jobs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[679,776,4153,4154,4156,4155,4157],"class_list":["post-21631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odd-jobs","tag-advertising","tag-australia","tag-m-j-hyland","tag-paintings","tag-perfume","tag-scam","tag-toilet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFake Paintings; Perfume Tester by Chris Flynn<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 4, 2011 \u2013   Most dust jackets list only literary accomplishments, but I\u2019ve always been a fan of offbeat author bios. 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