Customer Reviews

The Impostor: A Novel

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When one thinks things can't get any worse, they do. "The Impostor" is a story set in modern South Africa, telling of Adam. Losing his job and his home, he tries to start anew in a beat down shack on the edge of town. An old childhood acquaintance soon appears, Canning, who has the exact opposite of Adam's luck. The ensuing story between the two will alter the course of both of their lives forever. "The Impostor" is a thoroughly entertaining story, a strong choice for personal fiction collections.

This book was received through minibookexpo.com

"The Impostor" is the story of Adam Napier, a lost soul who was recently fired and forced to leave his house. He takes residence in a country house that his brother purchased years earlier but has since been vacant. He seeks to reconnect with his inner poet, and spends much of his time alone in the quiet community in a rural part of South Africa. After a chance encounter with a childhood acquaintance named Canning, Adam's quiet existence begins to take on new meaning. It does not take long however, for Adam's involvement with Canning and his wife Baby, to become complicated and dangerous.

It comes as no surprise to me that Damon Galgut has received much recognition and praise for his writing, as his words and imagery were incredibly powerful throughout the novel. I felt Adam's intense loneliness, as if it were a tangible presence, with the turn of every page. That is exactly why I have contradictory feelings about this book. On the one hand, Galgut's writing transported me into the novel and I couldn't help but read on to see how he would continue to convey such raw emotion. And yet, it is those same beautiful that left me with a gloomy feeling that was hard to shake.

It's not that I only like books with happy endings or light material, but the bleakness of this book was striking. In that respect, saying that I enjoyed reading the book would be incorrect. Rather, I was in awe of the beauty of the writing and just how much I internalized Adam's conflicts. I recommend this book because it is wonderfully written, even though the writing itself evokes some difficult emotions.

http://bookopolis.blogspot.com

This book is effective in evoking the slow-moving, hot landscape of the karoo, and pushes various ideas regarding alienation and human interaction that seem to be recurrent themes in modern South African literature. It had some things in common with Coetzee's writing: a passivity that many readers might consider boring. However, I found it very engaging almost despite myself, and read it over the course of a day. Those who can tolerate Gabriel Garcia Marquez might find this an interesting window onto a very unfamiliar landscape.

This is one of those books that a reader might fail to appreciate while working through it. However, the story (a young man seeking to find himself in the remotest part of South Africa) and the images Galgut draws will stay with a reader for a long time. There was something so quietly "off" about the world the author creates that I have not stopped thinking about the book since finishing it.