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.

It's a brilliantly written book! The prose so beautiful, you travel forty years with our protagonist in search oh his father.. Porter's poetic prose vividly paints each decade beautifully.. highly recommend

Having lived in California, once upon a time, I could easily envision parts of this story set in the era of the 70’s and the years that followed. This was, for me, a very moving read.

This covers another time, when women were meant to be wives who catered to their husbands, and tended to their family, but also the blooming of the era of ‘free love’ to some extent.

A story of a husband, wife, and a son who live in California, whose lives begin to change as the cultural movement begins to blossom into a combination of cultural, sexual and more liberal attitudes about sex and morals.

A very engaging read, and a glimpse into another time, a journey for the son to find a path to reach his father, and perhaps to make amends.


Pub Date: 15 Apr 2025


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor

A sensitive, cinematic account of childhood trauma and its survival. This is finely drawn stuff, narrated carefully and perceptively. I found it a little long, a little repetitive, both in the portrait of the father and also in the Californian scene setting. And let’s not forget Fleetwood Mac. Definitely too heavy a hand there.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting author and a compelling piece of work. I’m now waiting for the TV version.

This novel was astounding, Andrew Porter captured Steven Mills at different points of his life coping with a father who had difficulties with his life. This left a lasting impact on Steven which ultimately led to a quest for answers, forgiveness, and acceptance. Andrew Porter brought the reader effortlessly into this family drama. It was well written, the reader felt emotions along with all the characters. Thank you Netgalley for this early opportunity to read this gem. I hope is soars on the charts!

I loved this novel. Andrew Porter, as in all his other books, is able to capture grief, hope and guilt with poignancy.

This novel is told in dual timelines; Steven Mills as a 12 year old and Steven Mills as an adult. As a child, he worshiped his erratic father who behaved mercurially and stayed emotionally distant from Steven. Steven's father was a Professor of English at St. Agnes College, a liberal arts college in southern California. Professor Mills and his wife loved to have parties at their home and as time progressed, the parties got more openly raunchy. Steven's dad had a close friend and the two of them would live in the pool cabana for weeks on end. It was obvious to me that Professor Mills was bisexual or gay. In contemporary jargon, he was queer. He was also mentally ill, quite possible bi-polar. Steven's mother loved her husband very much and did not know what to do. The point of no return or the epicenter of the novel is when Professor Mills is denied tenure.

If anyone has lived through academic settings as a professor or spouse you will know how important tenure is. It is a lifeline, one that can keep you adrift but is always there to reel you in. Tenure means that you have freedom of speech and that basically you can't be fired unless you commit a travesty such as a felony. Tenured faculty are the heads of departments and deans. Though most professors have annual reviews, tenure protects them from losing their jobs. If one doesn't get tenure, it is much more difficult to secure another job in academia.

Right after being notified that he was denied tenure, Professor Mills leaves his wife and young child. He provides no indication as to where he is going or if he will ever return. As an adult, Stevens sets out to solve the mystery of his father. His own life is at a standstill as he and his wife have just separated and he is on leave from his college teaching job. Steven goes up and down the coast of California talking to his father's friends and former colleagues trying to piece together who his father was. Everyone has a story for Steven but no one has the answer to the looming question Steven has - 'Who was my father'?

Steven eventually realizes that finding the essence of a person is nearly impossible. Others have opinions, bits of memory and some even have convoluted stories. Steven is trying to find something that cannot be found. As he travels, both actually and metaphorically, it appears that there are more questions about his father than answers. Once Steven realizes that unknowable essence of another, he can be free.

The story is beautifully written, evoking strong emotions throughout, with its rich narrative. The poignancy of Steven's search, and his realization that his father is basically unknowable, creates sympathy and grief, Though short in length, this novel has great depth, wonderful characterizations, and a fluid narrative.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalleu for an Advanced Review Copy of this novel.