The Impostor

By Damon Galgut

Book Overview

Damon Galgut is one of South Africa's most exciting new literary voices. In The Impostor, his first novel since The Good Doctor, Galgut leads his readers into the developing heart of postapartheid South Africa, a landscape being reshaped by new waves of money and power. Adam Napier leaves Johannesburg looking for a fresh start. Jobless and directionless, but with a head full of literary ambitions, he moves into his brother's dilapidated house on the edge of a backwater town. One day he encounters Canning, a man who claims Adam saved his life in their school days, but whom Adam does not remember at all. But he plays along and, for a time, enjoys all that Canning has: a vast fortune and game preserve inherited from his father, and a beautiful, mysterious younger wife to whom Adam is compulsively, dangerously drawn. A spellbinding achievement from one of the defining members of a new generation of African writers, The Impostor evokes a glittering world in which the moneyed old guard, newly empowered black Africans, and shady foreign businessmen jockey for a piece of the new South African dream.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0046LUPUY
• ISBN13: 9780802170538
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Bleak yet powerful

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

A strong choice for personal fiction collections

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.