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The Imposters
The Imposters | Tom Rachman
3 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Imperfectionists, the story of a chameleonic writer, and the indelible characters in her orbit, in a novel about love, the power of art, and what we leave behind. When a Tom Rachman novel lands in the bookstores, I stop living and breathing to devour it. Its hard to think of anyone who has a better grasp on the world we live in (and I mean, like, the entire planet) and can write about it with such entertainment and panache. Gary Shteyngart Dora Frenhofer, a once successful but now aging and embittered novelist, knows her mind is going. She is determined, however, to finish her final book, and reverse her fortunes, before time runs out. Alone in her London home during the pandemic, she creates, and is in turn created by, the fascinating real characters from her own life. Like a twenty-first-century Scheherazade, Dora spins stories to ward off her end. From New Delhi to New York, Copenhagen to Los Angeles, Australia to Syria to Paris, Doras chapters trot the globe, inhabiting the perspectives of her missing brother, her estranged daughter, her erstwhile lover, and her last remaining friend, among others in her orbit. As her own life comes into ever sharper focus, so do the signal events that have made her who she is, leaving us in Doras thrall until, with an unforeseen twist, she snaps the final piece of the puzzle into place. The Imposters is Tom Rachman at his inimitable best. With his trademark styleat once deliciously ironic and deeply affectionate (The Washington Post)he has delivered a novel whose formal ingenuity and flamboyant technique are matched only by its humanity and generosity.
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Megabooks
The Imposters | Tom Rachman
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Pickpick

This novel reads more like a loosely interconnected short story collection, which I enjoy, but this might be a marmite book. 🤔

Dora Frenhofer is an unsuccessful aging novelist that is trying to work on characters based on people she knows well or casually, e.g. her daughter and her delivery person. Each has a chapter. The final chapter integrates how these people have come into her life. I found the characters‘ stories interesting and vibrant.

Megabooks Not one I‘d particularly recommend to you @Cinfhen 🤔 1y
Cinfhen Hmmmm, because I do love interconnected stories and I recently read and loved 1y
Megabooks @Cinfhen 🤔🤔 they‘re very loosely connected. He hasn‘t really had a hit since the imperfectionists, which I haven‘t read yet. There are a few other reviewers on litsy who feel differently than I do. I‘m interested to see what you‘d think, but a #BorrowNotBuy for sure. 1y
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Cinfhen Yeah… totally! If I can borrow I‘ll give it a try - thanks, Meg ❤️ 1y
Ruthiella @Cinfhen Have you read this yet? IMO the best interconnected short story collection I have read, though to be fair, I‘ve not read that many. 1y
Megabooks @Ruthiella @Cinfhen agreed!! TTOLAT was a definite 5⭐️ from me!! 1y
Cinfhen I should probably try again @Ruthiella @Megabooks because I read Techno as an ARC and I didn‘t love it🤷🏼‍♀️And he‘s such a magnificent writer. Thanks for the suggestion 😁 1y
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review
Gleefulreader
The Imposters | Tom Rachman
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Mehso-so

This would be right on the edge of a low pick for me. The story of an elderly writer with dementia, the chapters are stories based on what she imagines for characters from her life and only towards the end do we find out their actual realities. Unfortunately I found myself far more intrigued by the “fictional” stories and less engaged with the main character, so I‘m not sure the conceit worked.

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Cathyloves2read
The Imposters | Tom Rachman
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Mehso-so

This book is deep.I think I got the main gist of it?But,it would be a spoiler if I were to include that in my review.I‘ll be honest,I powered through it.In the beginning,I hardly thought I could keep going. But I did. I won this book on Goodreads,and felt obligated to complete and review it.I may read this book again at some point,to try to better understand it.It seemed very disjointed to me,but the author may have written it like that on purpose