The Imagined Life

"The Imagined Life is many things: a deft exploration of male relationships, a mediation on how much we inherit from those who raise us, a study of shame set across the AIDS epidemic, but above all, it's a poignant, achingly beautiful story of human love, and the lengths we'll go to for those we care for."  * Irish Times *
"Porter's skills are once again on clear display in this novel— its use of telling detail, its effective economy of repetition, its fruitful ambiguity. The Imagined Life is compulsively readable... its owners can look forward to its vein of attenuated nostalgia and cautious hope." * TLS *
"Steeped in beautiful melancholy, The Imagined Life is a plangent, sensual meditation on forgiveness, written with finger-tip sensitivity. Boldly tender and calmly powerful, a novel to disappear into." * Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days and What a Time to Be Alive *
"Such an alluring novel, with echoes of The Goldfinch. I was completely absorbed." * Roxy Dunn, author of As Young As This *
"The Imagined Life [is] endowed with sympathy and propelled by the mystery behind the Mills family's undoing. You want to find out what happens." * The New York Times Book Review *
"Elegiac, poignant." * The Wall Street Journal *
"In measured and elegant prose, Porter gently unravels one family's life amidst the vindictive world of literary academia. Ambition and betrayal are beautifully counterpointed by sun-drenched Californian pool parties and a languid soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac and Frank Sinatra. Like the best of Richard Ford, this is a tender, melancholy book to savour." * Victoria Mackenzie, author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain *
"Impressively moving... Andrew Porter confronts with sensitivity and insight [the question] Is it ever possible for us to truly know our parents?" * Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness *
“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 *
“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 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 *