Book review: There is no Ethan

Spoiler alert: The title’s a spoiler.  

This is the story of how three highly intelligent, independent women discovered they were catfished by ‘Ethan Shuman’, written by one of them, Anna Akbari.

‘Ethan’ catfished Anna, ‘British Anna’, and Gina on dating site OK Cupid– and when they blew ‘his’ cover, other women also came forward - ten traceable victims of Ethan Shuman – people who developed feelings for a clever manipulator they hadn’t met – but not for any lack of trying.

The women weren’t alone in the mess. ‘Tim’ was being contacted about his photos being used online for dating profiles, and his friends’ identities and images were used to build up Ethan’s profile. (I am pretty sure that there are more victims. Ethan could always have morphed into someone else, and having not stopped more than once as promised, nor apparently seen through any professional counselling, it’s hard to believe this has fully ended.)

The way that the women worked together to bust who this man was fascinating, painstaking, methodical work. Reality and falsehoods were intertwined. If you think you’ve been/are being catfished, there may be some ideas here for tracing who the ‘perp’ is.

The reveal

‘Ethan Shuman’ (ES) was actually the manipulative Emily Slutsky, now married and using the name Emily Marantz.

She has shown little empathy with her victims or any remorse whatsoever other than for the potential effect upon her career, at least by the end of this book

Dr. Emily Marantz was 39 when the book came out in 2024. And  works as an gynaecologist at Jersey City Medical Center in New Jersey. I can find no record of her being struck off. Others have looked and found no records of her being disciplined, despite, according to the book, plenty of information being passed to both her place of study and later to her place of work.

I fail to see how she can be employed in the gynaecological department with intimate access to women’s personal details – leave alone access to women themselves.

Emily persuaded other women, believing she was a man, to reveal their closest thoughts, intimate sexual thoughts and fantasies.

The relationships never came offline, so none of Slutsky/Marantz’s victims have any legal recourse - more on that later.

Patterns

There are so many patterns used by groomers in this tale: accelerated bonding/love (love bombing), the borrowing of information from other victim’s lives to pass to another. Instilling empathy and fear. Sending emails pretending to be someone else. ‘Sticks’ and ‘carrots’, and making victims feel bad for doubting. Profiling a type. Mixing reality and lies, using truths to back the lies.

But the worst pattern is the harm done to the victims.

No money was stolen, but lives, time, reality were.

Author Anna Akbari describes it as being a slowly boiled frog, a term we often use here at CAAGe – each little boundary shifted, each persuasive explanation, each veiled threat, it all boils the water just a little more without the victime being aware until it’s too late.

Legal footing

No laws were broken, despite the harm that was caused.

Slutsky’s seen no repercussions.

The victims, by contrast, have to live with fact that fell for a fake.

If that wasn’t the motivation for the book - and as the author is an academic, it doesn’t have to be - it’s fully understandable that it would be. The World needs to know about predators like this. Nothing bar ‘going public’ seems to have worked to make Emily change her ways or show any remorse.

Recommended read?

Yes and no.

If you’re looking to understand the grooming part, how it works in n almost academic way, this will help.

But it’s necessarily slow to start - painstaking, because that was ‘Ethan’s M.O. The story, of course, lacks the drama of a story like the Tinder Swindler. There was no money, no shoot outs, no love scenes. no dramatic revelations - just some very strong detective work and a chance for the victims’ voices to be heard.

The afterword is interesting and looks at identities and realities, perception. Similarly the ethics of identity hacking are covered. And how we all manufacture our own realities.

But the biggest story lies in the background: how Slutsky/Marantz, after deceiving women for well over a decade is not considered a risk to the wellbeing of women in her intimate care; how her RWJBarnabas Health profile notes that inherited cancer syndromes are part of her clinical interests, when she cruelly lied about a cancer diagnosis, operation and post operative treartment as a way to avoid meeting her victims and inspire sympathy for her alter ego, Ethan.

How can patients continue to be exposed to someone with so little regard for the feelings of others, someone with such a strong manipulative streak? I am sure no physical harm will come to patients. And, as the author points out, we all present a version of ourselves to the outside World.

(Perhaps this is all just a reflection of why it’s been so hard to create laws to cover this situation.)

For me, it simply reinforces the ever increasing need to define consent in law. Because in no way did any of Slutsky’s victims ever consent to this.

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There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America's Biggest Catfish. Author: Anna Akbari. Released June 2024. Narrated by Anna Akbari and Justin Price. Published by Grand Central Publishing. Listened to on Audible