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About The Imagined Life
From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed writer, a taut, elegiac novel about a man trying to uncover the truth about the father who left him behind
Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy.
As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father’s friends, family members, and former colleagues, the novel offers us tantalizing glimpses into Steve’s childhood—his parents’ legendary pool parties, the black-and-white films on the backyard projector, secrets shared with his closest friend. Each conversation in the present reveals another layer of his father’s past, another insight into his disappearance. Yet with every revelation, his father becomes more difficult to recognize. And, with every insight, Steve must confront truths about his own life.
Rich in atmosphere, and with a stunningly sure-footed emotional compass, The Imagined Life is a probing, nostalgic novel about the impossibility of understanding one’s parents, about first loves and failures, about lost innocence, about the unbreakable bonds between a father and a son.
PRAISE
“With its quiet confidence and elegant precision, The Imagined Life is a masterpiece of memory, music, and longing. Andrew Porter is one of our finest prose stylists, and everything he’s turned his attention to here—a troubled adult son struggling to understand his troubled father; the slow disintegration of an American family; a boy coming of age amidst the wine and weed of California in the early ‘80s—shimmers into pure gold.” —Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe
“The Imagined Life is a wise and elegant novel. Andrew Porter bestows so much grace on the confusion of growing up and the relatable anguish of looking back and recognizing our parents as people—true people—who struggle just as mightily with sorrow and love.” —Manuel Muñoz, author of The Consequences
“The Imagined Life delves into the space between the people we love and who we wish them to be. With unsentimental precision, Andrew Porter examines the flawed relationship between a father and son, approaching it with the grace of a true literary master.” —Jai Chakrabarti, author of A Play for the End of the World
“A gorgeous, glow-in-the-dark novel, and the best book yet, from an unflinching, uncompromising writer of the highest order. A paean to the ‘unreliability of memory,’ the lives we imagine for one another, and the impossibility of ever really knowing those we love and those who love us most.” —David James Poissant, author of Lake Life and The Heaven of Animals