The Lovely Truth in a Lie: A Novella

By Connor Johnson

A con artist attempts an honest life and immediately feels nothing. The city offers him a new address, a cleaner name, and the illusion of progress, but no sense of arrival. Each day feels rehearsed, as if sincerity is just another role he hasn't learned how to believe in yet.

Fresh off a personal reckoning and armed with a shaky sense of moral resolve, he tells himself this time is different. No more scams. No more lies.

But he doesn't know who he is without the lie. The scams gave him shape-without them, he feels unfinished, like a draft mistaken for a person. Honesty feels like bad improv, every moment waiting to be exposed. He keeps searching for something solid beneath the performance, but finds only silence, and the quiet fear that there was never anyone there at all.

In a world where everyone is selling something-including themselves-honesty may be the most elaborate con of all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GLZ85S8D
• ISBN13: 9798246981412
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"