For someone who has struggled with mental illness and who came out on a college campus in the early 1990s, this book was a sucker punch of emotion. I loved it! While the author unraveled the plot slowly, I'm finding that the characters and their experiences have stayed with me. I would hazard a guess that Porter is writing at least somewhat from personal experience as he gets the details so perfectly. Mental illness, homophobia, love, family...this gem of a book captures them all perfectly.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

4.5 stars

This lyrical novel played like a movie in my mind - I could feel the California sunshine on my face and picture the characters so vividly. The story had quite a few layers and covered a range of topics through memories, flashbacks, and present day. From grief and family to coming of age and growth, I enjoyed following Steven in his emotional journey to uncover the truth about his father and his past.

I would love to read more from Andrew Porter, and I'm excited to grab a copy of The Imagined Life for my shelves when it's published.

This is a story about a man who is trying to get tenure at a university, as seen through the eyes of his son. The timeline toggles back and forth between when the son is growing up to when he is an adult. There is a lot of unspoken love, along with confusion, in both timelines. The writing is spot on. A very compelling read. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I haven’t read any of Andrew Porter’s previous novels but was intrigued when I received an ARC of his upcoming novel, The Imagined Life, and decided to try it. I’m so glad I did! Porter’s writing is beautiful and I was drawn into the story of Stephen, who was abandoned by his professor father when he was 12 and as a man in his 40s finally decides to look into what happened to his father. Told in alternating timelines, Stephen discovers what happened to his father and also finally understands the impact it has had on his own life and his relationships. I really enjoyed this novel
And look forward to reading more of his work. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for this review copy!

Thirty-something Steven Mills is struggling in life. He has never been able to heal the hole left by his father who disappeared when he was twelve. With encouragement from his wife, he knows that as painful as it might be, if he is to restore his marriage and become the man he’d like to be, he has to figure out what happened in the past.

The book alternates chapters between present day Steven searching for information about what happened and twelve-year-old Steven around the time his father left.

The backstory is alive and immerses us in the atmosphere of California at that time. As a child, on the cusp of adolescence, he bears witness to his father falling apart. A Proustian scholar, who is up for tenure, Steven’s parents hold frequent alcohol and drug laden gatherings of academics.. They swim. The parties are festive. His father projects classic movies on a cabana wall. This cabana also serves as a place for his father to work and is where he r spends too much time with a male colleague. Steven observes what’s going on but doesn’t quite understand it. As his father comes closer to his college’s decision on tenure, he reels more and more out of control. His mother tries to provide stability but has her limitations.

In his present-day journey, he looks for answers among the old colleagues who practically lived at his house during those times as well as his father’s brother.

The story is compelling. It is nostalgic in its way for a time we often romanticize but doesn’t let us off the hook. We see the trouble beneath it.

It is a beautifully written, memoir-like story, that resonates, regardless of our experience.
Highly recommend.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Knopf/Random House for the opportunity to read this advanced reading copy and honestly review it..

A sensitive beautifully written book about a young boy who is affected by the problems of his father who then vanishes from his life. The story starts out in 1983 when young Steve's parents hold a pool party for some of his father's colleagues from the college where he teaches. You feel a distancing right from the start as Steve isn't a part of this celebration, but instead, is more of an observer. Things come to a head in a manner than stays with Steve all of his life. Without giving any of the story away, Steve continues to observe and wonders what is going on with his father's life that led to him eventually leaving the family behind. There are obvious issues involving interactions between his father and various faculty at the college. The father also suffers from stress due to working on a book, hoping to lead to tenure. Then there's the interactions and parties that the father has that just don't sit right with Steve. Steve can see that these things also are affecting his mother. Once his father leaves, Steve, in adulthood, sets out on a journey to find his father and find out what happened.

Both Steve and his father often refer to Proust, Stevie Nicks, Film Noir and several other creative artists and works that either the father or Steve find relavent to their lives. An astute reader will easily pick up on these relationships to what is happening at the time, as well as their symbolism throughout the story. There's also a lot of layering of types of events and personalities between Steve and his father that build and are masterfully laced together as the story progresses. What might seem complex, is actually rather easy to observe for the reader, so it's not difficult to see this finely built piece of literary architecture of sorts. The author even tells you as you move along without sounding like instructions. The writing is highly sensitive, reflective and well structured.

Though this is quite a good work of art, I do have to admit, that at times, I did get a little impatient with how the story seemed to drag and repeat itself at times, but I do believe that it had more to do with my interest rather than the quality of the writing. Some I found very interesting, while there were moments that it just lost my interest. As the story moved along, I did find that I enjoyed the second half much more.

No doubt, we will see more from this author and I look forward to future works.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the eBook in lieu of a review.

I cannot stop telling everyone about this book! That’s how much I loved it! Steven’s father, a brilliant, beloved English professor, disappeared when he was twelve. Steven had some memories of the time before when his father was up for tenure, the research times when silence was required, the fantastical pool parties, the outdoor movies, the massive drinking, the eclectic group of professors, his childhood friend, and his adoring mother’s pain. When his father left everything changed.

Steven and his mother had to leave their nice house and readjust to being poor. Steven’s anger overtook his life. Not only was his father gone but so was his best friend, Chau. Steven was able to graduate college, marry and have a son. Not once did Steven allow his anger to abate or to look for his father. At fifty-two, his wife asked him to leave. He realized he needed to find out why his father left and whether he was still alive in order to move on with his life.

Living out of his car and couch surfing, Steven goes on a physical and emotional journey to find answers. He talks to the people who knew his father prior to the disappearance, from his uncles to coworkers. It is an examination of grief and anger stunted by an unwillingness or incapacity to move forward. It is an exploration of growth and an unwillingness to stop until he finds answers. The reader is in the passenger seat as an eyewitness to this remarkable journey. The language propels the story with compassion and understanding.

Put it on your TBR list! Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for this amazing book. All opinions are my own.

The Imagined Life tells the story of Steve, a man searching for the father he has neither seen nor heard from in about forty years. His dad, a rather flamboyant and exuberant man, fails to get tenure at his college and, in brief, goes off the rails. It is no secret that he’s involved with another man and probably suffers from bipolar disorder. Those are the facts.

Steve embarks on a journey to not only find his father, but to discover who he was, or, is, and, in the process, he discovers himself.

Saying more would reveal too much of this remarkable book, which should be on the reading list of anyone who loves outstanding writing and a great story. The author mesmerized me with his beautiful use of descriptive and poignant language, and how he conveys the story of Steve as a puzzled young boy and an equally puzzled adult. To say that this writing is breathtaking is not enough, but I am at a loss to find another superlative.

Ten stars, if I could. I look forward to reading more from Andrew Porter. He is gifted.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

4.5 stars

Thanks so much to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book! What a powerful and emotional read this was.

In 2008, I stumbled on a story collection called The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter and I was totally blown away. Porter is such a fantastic writer, and I’ve read everything that he’s written.

In 1984, Steven’s father disappeared. He was a college professor—smart, popular, handsome, and enigmatic. But that summer, his father was awaiting a decision on tenure while he was slowly sabotaging his life. Steven watched the events of that summer through the eyes of a child, and he was insulated by his mother’s need to protect him.

“I’d never held him on a pedestal, never believed him to be a great man. I knew that he was flawed, knew that he had made a lot of mistakes in his life, and besides, I had grown up amidst the collapse of his career, the spurious allegations that ensued, the rumors and hearsay.”

Steven’s life has been defined by feelings of anger, betrayal, and abandonment. In an effort to find some closure, he embarks on a trip all over California, meeting with family members, as well as friends and former colleagues of his father. While he never gets all of the answers he seeks, he gets a fuller picture of the passionate, troubled man his father was.

I really thought this was poignant and thought-provoking. Do we ever really know our parents and understand what made them tick? How different are childhood memories from what we understand as an adult? In Porter’s hands, this is a beautifully told story.

The book will publish 4/15/2025.

The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter dives into the ups and downs of family, loss, and figuring out who we are, with a particular focus on the complicated dynamics between fathers and sons. The story centers on Steven Mills, a guy trying to get to the bottom of his father's mysterious disappearance back in 1984. As he travels along the California coast talking to people who knew his dad, he ends up facing his own feelings about family and his childhood.

Porter’s writing brings the coastal setting to life, making it feel like a character in its own right, alongside Steven’s quest. The memories of childhood and lost innocence hit hard as Steven digs deeper, and he starts to realize how tough it can be to truly understand your parents.

In the end, The Imagined Life is all about family and the mixed feelings that come with growing up. With its engaging prose and relatable themes, the book captures the messy reality of relationships and searching for who we really are, leaving readers thinking long after they’ve finished.




4o mini

Wow!! I really enjoyed this book, it’s first by this author and I loved it! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for arc of this book!

Porter’s novel is a gorgeously written, meticulously observed elegy so well-captured I would have believed it if it were called a memoir. Told from the perspective of an adult Steven striving to understand what happened to his father, the book captures carefully the ways in which people are unknowable.
Many mysteries populate the book. What role did Steven’s father’s homosexuality play in his disappearance, to say nothing of the total destruction of his academic career? How does Edwyn, years later, look back on what happened? How much did mental illness wrought Steven’s father’s decline? And what, exactly, was the nature of Steven’s father’s obsession with Proust?
While some of these questions are answered, many are not. Porter convincingly evokes the relation of the unanswered to grief, the ways in which the uncertain ghosts of the past continue to haunt those forced to trudge on in the present. While Steven’s father might be at the forefront of the novel, he is not the only ghost who populates its pages. Some immensely poignant scenes in the novel involve Steven’s childhood friend Chau, with whom he shares some wonderful moments before the two are inevitably thrust apart by life.
Porter, aside from just telling the story, manages to artfully convey the mood. His images of Steven’s father’s parties are beautiful and melancholic, positively Gatsby-esque. His characters also remain believable, round yet always out of reach. While Steven’s father might be the center point of the narrative, Porter refuses to consign Steven’s mother to the dust bin. He does a wonderful job of demonstrating the often-ignored love she bears both her spouse and son, of showing the selfish side to Steven’s father’s pursuit of love. Additionally, Porter is keenly aware of the blurred boundaries of queer identity, careful to show the way people often fail to fit into the boxes used to for political advocacy.
The Imagined Life could easily be a slow read, but I found it gripping—the sort of book, in fact, which I could not put down. A keen, lovely, and painful read, I would recommend it to anyone looking to slip, for a little while, into another world.

Really liked the author’s writing style, it felt like a friend telling me the story. It was also a very interesting and compelling read. The middle was a little slow and repetitive at times but the ending was perfect. All in all, a very satisfying read. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

“In the imagined life, so much is different”. Steve embarks on a search to learn the truth about his father who disappeared when Steve was twelve years of age. Now an adult, married with a young son, he has decided it’s time to learn more about his father and to deal with longstanding emotions that are affecting his marriage. He sets out on a road trip to talk to his uncle and old friends and colleagues of his father. Set in a backdrop of academia and its inherent pressures, Steve starts to understand relationships he grew up around as well as prejudices about homosexuality that were prevalent.

The story is well told and nicely written. Mr. Porter does a good job of going back and forth between the late 80’s and the present. As he learns more about his father, Steve also understands more about himself. “I’d lived my entire life in a constant state of fear, worried the people I loved most would abandon me, not wanting to ever relive what I’d experienced with my father”. It’s a moving story of love and acceptance. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy

Porter’s book is beautifully and sensitively written, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell or the last years of Updike. The book does a remarkable job of weaving Steven’s firsthand memories of his father with the secondhand tellings he gets from his father’s friends and colleagues as he tries to piece together what led to his father’s disappearance. It gently layers this on top of Steven’s own family strife. In contrast to what might be an unreliable narrator, Steven is honest about what he doesn’t know and what he questions. I like how, even as the adult Steven looks back, the memories are shared through the filter of a twelve-year-old’s mind—there are quotes heard through open windows, and things he didn’t understand that he does now as an adult. Everything is woven tightly in this story and nothing is forced.

Thank you NetGalley for helping me discover a new favorite author.

“The Imagined Life” felt so real and personal that I really thought this was a memoir at one point and had to double check that it was, in fact, a fictional story.

Just to recap, this story is about Steven trying to uncover who his father really is (maybe was?) ever since his father left the family when Steven was 12 years old. He reflects on his own childhood memories and reaches out to those close to his father to try to put everything together, while reflecting on his own relationship with his wife and son.

The way Porter describes Steven’s conflicted and tremulous perspective of his father growing up kept reminding me of my own relationship with my parents, especially my father. Every chapter peeled back a layer of childhood, parenthood, love, and trauma. The pacing never felt dull or rushed. A bittersweet story that hits a bit too close to home, but perhaps one I needed to read.

Wow, I just finished an amazing read. The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter was a five star read for me. Don’t miss this one.

Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for the ebook. Steve Mills, like many grown men in his situation, is obsessed with his father who left the family when Steve was young and had very little contact with him afterwards. Steve, who is falling away from his own wife and son, tries to understand his very charismatic professor father, by interviewing his old friends and colleagues today. And every interview shows his father in a new light, but mostly raises more questions than answers.

First, thank you to #NetGalley and to #aaKnopf for the opportunity to read and review "This Imagined Life" by Andrew Porter. Thank you, equally, for introducing me to the writing of this author (I am now going through each of his books, including his highly acclaimed short story collection - The Disappeared - and enjoying them immensely. I love this writer.

This novel is a 5-star without question and I read it in conjunction with his book "In Between Days" which shares some similar themes about family secrets, fatherhood, growing up, forgiveness, and acceptance. I won't go into the plot of the book (that can be read anywhere and I don't want to inadvertently add spoilers) -- but I can say, confidently, that he is one of my favorite new authors and I recommend THIS book wholeheartedly. It will be on shelves on 4/15/2025. I absolutely consumed it and will likely grab the audiobook if and when it comes out. Such a gem!! Thanks to all.

Evocative of the covered decades in California, The Imagined Life recasts a man’s journey from youth to adulthood as he searches for his long lost father. Long lost in many ways - through memories, in understanding, and physically from his family. Beautifully written with passion and depth.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the opportunity to read this ARC.