The book
A taut and elegiac novel that follows a man determined to uncover the truth about the father who vanished from his life
A moving, layered, and engrossing read, The Imagined Life follows Steven Mills, a man in a struggling marriage who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about the father who vanished from his life when he was only twelve.
Driving up the coast of California, Steven seeks out his father’s friends, family, and former colleagues, and is transported back to his 1980s childhood—his parents’ legendary pool parties, black-and-white films on the backyard projector, his father’s male friends in the cabana house... With every revelation his father becomes more difficult to recognize, and, with every insight, Steven must confront truths about his own life.
In cinematic prose, Andrew Porter explores the full nexus of male relationships: fathers and sons, husbands and lovers—set achingly against the US AIDS epidemic in the 1980s—and masterfully weaves a tale of trauma, generational secrets, forbidden love, and shame.
The author
Andrew Porter
Andrew Porter is the author of the story collection The Theory of Light and Matter and the novel In Between Days. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/ Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.