The Imposters
(Hardback)
Available Formats
Hardback
Published: 10th August 2023
Paperback
Published: 26th April 2023
Paperback
Published: 12th November 2024
Publishing Details
The Imposters
By (Author) Tom Rachman
Quercus Publishing
riverrun
10th August 2023
27th April 2023
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Fiction
Narrative theme: Interior life
813.6
Physical Properties
Hardback
352
Width 160mm, Height 236mm, Spine 34mm
560g
Description
The Imposters is the first novel in stories that Tom Rachman has written since his international bestseller The Imperfectionists.
'An astonishing achievement - brutally funny, humane, dizzying - will win Rachman the readership he deserves' Patrick Gale It's set during a crisis in democracy, a society in lockdown linked digitally but convulsed by a social media frenzy, and is told by a little-known, little-read Dutch novelist named Dora Frenhofer who has decided that her life as an old woman in this post-truth pandemic world has become too much.But like a twenty-first century Scheherazade Dora spins stories to fend off the evil day, conjuring connections from her past to give meaning to the present. She imagines the fate of her missing brother, lost on the hippie trail in India in the sixties; the loneliness of her estranged daughter Beck, whose career writing stand-up shows for Netflix dramatizes the culture wars; Danny, an almost equally unfashionable writer she meets at a festival; the tortured history of the van driver who takes her unwanted books away; the nonchalant courier who nearly ran her over in the rain; her former lover, the sophisticated food critic; her last remaining friend. And finally, Dora's own last chapter.The Imposters is Rachman at his inimitable best, a writer whose formal ingenuity and flamboyant technique is matched by his humanity and generosity.Reviews
Tom Rachman surpasses the already astonishing achievements of The Italian Teacher. His satire is often brutally funny, but always rooted in a humane acceptance that our flaws are what make us us. This is a dizzying switchback tale of our vanities and vain ambitions but also a deft illustration of the consolations (and condolatory revenges) of fiction. Dora Frenhofer, the relentless, failing novelist who powers the book along, is a spiky, courageous creation who will win Rachman the readership he deserves. Very sad the ride is over! -- Patrick Gale
I absolutely loved The Imposters. It's terrifying, and yet made me laugh so hard. Tom Rachman is a wonderfully knowing writer, at home in half a dozen societies other than his own; and yet, The Imposters is a severe (at times hilarious) indictment of shallow cosmopolitanism, of the cruelty and disregard that can underlie the veneer of fluency in a global world, of failing to truly see the myriad peoples we find ourselves thrown amongst. -- Aatish Taseer
If like me you were a big fan of Tom Rachman's rollicking The Imperfectionists, you'll want to leap on his new novel, The Imposters. It's clever and funny and ingeniously constructed, also heartfelt: Rachman is a wizard at displaying jaundiced affection for his characters. And the dialogue zings along with an enviably Stoppardian zest. I couldn't have enjoyed myself more. -- Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English
Author Bio
Born in London and raised in Vancouver, Tom Rachman was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press stationed in Rome, then an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He is the author of three novels, the international bestseller The Imperfectionists; The Rise and Fall of Great Powers and The Italian Teacher, as well as a short stories collection, Basket of Deplorables. He lives in London.
