Book Review: ‘The Imposters,’ by Tom Rachman

Readers of this novel will face a choice: Submit to the construct, trusting that Rachman will come around with answers and revelations, or, well, be annoyed by it. Like “The Imperfectionists,” “The Imposters” reads as a collection of interconnected stories, which means that if aspects of the larger conceit prick at you — important new characters right up until the end, formatting tricks, wonky timelines — they will also prick at you on a smaller scale.

In one section, a posh-but-down-on-his-luck deliveryman “has taken a fiver to sweep cat droppings from a neighbor’s front garden, and spent years washing dishes at a burger bar, and carrying boxes of frozen French fries from a lorry.” He also does some work with a right-wing website, serves as a landlord to delinquent tenants and takes a vacation to Spain. His primary function is to cross paths with Amir but it’s a desultory road to get there.

There’s a line in the movie adaptation of Michael Chabon’s “Wonder Boys” that has always haunted me, in which a character critiques another’s manuscript. “It’s … very detailed,” she says, “You know, with the genealogies of everyone’s horses, and the dental records, and so on.” I found myself wishing Rachman, too, were haunted by this line. To delve so deeply and move on is a skill — to be sure, there are many delights in this book — but to intentionally not telegraph which plots are worth retaining means this novel is missing the emotional core of Rachman’s previous work, and there’s an all-you-can-eat Rashomon buffet in its place.

Novels in which a writer character serves as stand-in for the actual writer are common. Less common are novels in which that fictional writer stages a manipulation of her fellow characters (Ian McEwan’s “Atonement,” Jennifer Egan’s “The Keep”). It’s a hard trick to pull off. Even if an author manages it, she risks toppling into a vat of self-congratulatory cheese: a writer writing about a writer writing about writing. By giving his heroine dementia and moving her to the end of her life (also in McEwan-like fashion, there’s a consequential snafu with the wrong draft of a letter), Rachman mostly keeps himself out of the dairy. Though he can’t help but indulge on occasion. “I might be one of your characters,” one writer says. To which Dora replies: “Oh, you are. Are you only realizing that now?”

One is a roller-coaster person or one is not. The former may enjoy a sea-level stroll but the latter will never see the appeal of a 300-foot drop. Personally, I am not a roller-coaster person. I can, however, appreciate the sheer engineering required for such a contraption. With “The Imposters,” it’s as if Rachman is standing at the apex of his significant talent and sending his characters down the tracks, just to see where they land. Others may find it all to be screaming fun.