I consider myself lucky to have a strong relationship with both of my parents, though it hasn’t always been smooth. I’ve never questioned their love for me, but like most families, we’ve had our share of ups and downs. It’s easy to forget that our parents are navigating life for the first time, just like we are—learning, stumbling, and growing along the way. They have their own history, a whole life that existed before we came into the picture, and that history shaped who they are as people and as parents. Andrew Porter touches on this idea in his novel The Imagined Life, where he explores the complex dynamics between parents and children, and the process of reconciling our perceptions of our parents with the fuller, often messier truth of who they really are.
Steven Mills adored his father. What young boy wouldn't? To Steve, his dad was the best—smart, funny, and always someone he could count on. He remembers watching him hold court at their home’s infamous poolside parties, entertaining friends, colleagues, and students with sharp anecdotes about literature, film, and life. Steve would observe from afar, quietly soaking in his father's brilliance and charm.
But the man Steve idolized and the man his father truly was turned out to be two very different people. Even as a boy, he couldn't ignore the tension. He saw the way his mother flinched at his father's jokes, the growing silence between them, the slow retreat of his father into the pool house, where another figure often lurked behind the drawn curtains. When his father's quest for tenure unraveled in spectacular fashion, Steve could only watch helplessly as the world he revered collapsed around him. The parties dwindled, then stopped altogether. His father's desperate letters, pleas to former colleagues, went unanswered.
And then, in 1984, his father vanished entirely, leaving Steve and his mother to pick up the pieces of the life he had abandoned.
Now an adult facing troubles of his own—a marriage on the brink of divorce, a distant relationship with his only child—Steve is determined to uncover what became of his enigmatic father. Each revelation in the present peels back another layer of the past, revealing a portrait of a man increasingly difficult to recognize. And with every new discovery, Steve must also confront painful truths about his own life and how history may be repeating itself.
In The Imagined Life, Andrew Porter crafts a novel that nimbly explores the dichotomies between nostalgia and reality, innocence and enlightenment, love and loss. On the surface, it’s a straightforward story—a quest to uncover the fate of a missing family member—but as the layers peel back, deeper meanings emerge. I was completely invested in Steve’s journey and couldn’t help but see pieces of my own relationship with my father reflected in him. We can never fully know all the complexities that shape the people who raise us. We trust them, learn from them, even model ourselves after them, but relationships are rarely simple. Porter captures that tension beautifully, illustrating the complicated yet unbreakable bond between father and son. The Imagined Life is a daring, brilliant novel that deftly plumbs the depths of our humanity and the intricate connections we build with those closest to us.
For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2025, 33)
