The Imposters

The Imposters is the fifth novel by American author, Tom Rachman. Dora Frenhofer has been described as a minor Dutch novelist, and she probably wouldn't disagree. At seventy-three, and living in North West London, she has embarked on (likely) her last manuscript. It will consist of nine chapters, the first and last featuring Dora herself. "This story regards an unsympathetic character, a failing novelist, based on herself. It's a punishing self-portrait."

It's interesting to see how seemingly unrelated vignettes about various figures in her life reveal snippets of her character. There's her fictional husband, Barry, who will alert her when it's time to "pull the plug"; her younger brother, Theo, whose disappearance may or may not have had something to do with a drowning in Delhi; her estranged daughter, LA comedy ghost writer, Beck; a young French/Arabian student, Amir who gets into bother in the Middle East.

Then there are: a New York City novelist, Danny Levittan, who discovers his irrelevance at a Literary Festival in Australia; a London bicycle courier in his fifties, Will de Courcy, who is offered work with a news media site that translates foreign language blogs and adds clickbait headlines, where he meets a French/Arabian translator writing a memoir.

Finally, Dora's former student, a grieving Danish journalist, Morgan Willumsen, whose children were murdered by a right-wing activist; and her former lover, American food and wine writer, Alan Zelikov, resident in Paris, receiving a visit from Beck Frenhofer who wants to meet her half-brother, his son Benjamin.

During that encounter, Alan, who "considers his career as an accomplishment without value" hears Beck describe her mother in London: "how she has wilted over the years, gradually shedding all companions. She did this in pursuit of her writing –yet isolation only made her novels barren."

Dora turns out to be the ultimate unreliable narrator as it becomes clear that diary entries prefacing chapters hint at the inspiration for what occurs in the chapter that follows: perhaps her memoir is more fiction than fact? She does, after all, maintain that "A novel is what you make; a memoir, what's made of you… Novels are her inner life"

"You know your own personality in the way that sonar knows distance, by bouncing it off what's around. According to others' reactions, your confidence shrivels or becomes bloated. Over time, this is who you consider yourself to be. Rarely, you stumble into yourself unmediated, brushing your teeth perhaps, or travelling alone."

The final chapter, describing a mix-up at a private euthanasia clinic, is darkly funny and reveals what some readers might have suspected.

Rachman's descriptive prose is often gorgeous: "Mr Bhatt smiles, flushing with love for his wife – her defiance a flirt, like his grumpiness… Her praise infuses him like nothing else, much as her derision empties Mr Bhatt, a plug yanked from the basin of him."

His dialogue is often entertaining, as demonstrated when Danny encounters Dora at the airport:

"'What kind of fiction do you write?' he asks.

'The sad kind, where nothing happens, then it ends.'

'I might be one of your characters.'

'Oh, you are. Are you only realizing that now?'

'Maybe you're one of mine.'

'Do you write women?'

'Of course.'

'Do you write them well?'

Do you write men well?'

'Very well. Men on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Written for women who ended up married to them.'"

Tom Rachman's latest offering is topical, clever and insightful, a pleasure to read.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus Books.