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
‘Easily the best thing I have read in ages’ Rebecca Wait
‘Clever and full of tricks from start to finish’ Spectator

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.

Publisher Review

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