Tom Rachman gets meta with a story about an aging author struggling to finish her final book
The British-Canadian writer spoke with Ryan B. Patrick about the novel The Imposters
Tom Rachman's new novel, The Imposters, is a story about stories. It's a layered examination of the craft of writing, narrative power and the ever-changing landscape of the modern writing world.
At the beginning of the story, we meet 73-year-old Dora. She's a woman at the end of her writing career: bitter, in cognitive decline and toiling in obscurity. Dora hopes that this new novel will revive her career and restore her reputation.
Tom Rachman is an English-born, Vancouver-raised novelist and journalist. He has published three novels, including his 2010 Giller Prize-nominated novel The Imperfectionists, and its follow-up The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. He has written in publications such as the New York Times, The Atlantic and The New Yorker.
Rachman spoke to The Next Chapter summer edition's Ryan B. Patrick about The Imposters.
Who are the imposters in this book?
It could be read in lots of different ways. The way that it's structured, you have the main character and then you have all of these other ones, who are in a way the imposters in her story. Is it her story or is she the impostor in their story?
It's also the idea that writers themselves are imposters. They have the presumptuousness to butt into the culture and say, "Listen to me, I have something that I'd like you to attend to." And why should anybody care? They have to find a way to draw people in and it feels even more profound to attempt that when there's so much going on — there's so much noise.
I'm in the story and I'm trying to peer through this story, peer through the the words in the sentences to figure out who that person was behind it, what they meant, what they intended with that.- Tom Rachman
With any artwork, you're not just looking at the work, you're also wondering about the person behind that work. And in reading a short story or a novel, I'm always reading the sentences in two ways. I'm in the story and I'm trying to peer through this story, peer through the the words in the sentences to figure out who that person was behind it, what they meant, what they intended with that. What kind of human being put these words down? And that feels like an imposter too.
In The Imposters you're writing about writing — and thinking about what a novel means in 2023. What does writing a novel mean in the present day?
I wouldn't hope to be able to pronounce an answer to that question. With all writing, there's primarily the story, but there are also ideas that you try to fuse into it — thoughts that you're having, things that are bedevilling you and that you're wondering about — and you try to work them out by writing them into story form.
In this case, I feel like I remain stuck with that question because it feels like a very open one that I can't let go of — the idea of the importance of writing and stories — because I feel like they're such a part of being human.
I grew up longing to glimpse into the writing world and wondered what it was like inside.- Tom Rachman
I do, however, worry sometimes about the place of the written story, of fiction and of literature — there are so many competing forms of entertainment. I grew up longing to glimpse into the writing world and wondered what it was like inside. This book is a little bit of a hoping to pull back the curtains and show people what it is like to write and to wonder whether there is much interest in what anybody is doing.
The main character Dora wonders, "What if the book I'm trying to write comes to nothing?" Is Dora a proxy for you?
There are so many different novelists that I wouldn't presume that she could stand for all of them. But she definitely has bits of me and she has lots of bits that aren't me. She's 73 and and I only feel 73 internally. She's not quite me. But she conveys some of my thoughts and views about it. She's a bit more of a prickly and difficult character than I hope I am. But she's somebody who is looking around in the ways that that I've expressed and wondering where all of this fits anymore.
I certainly feel that the writing itself, if you enjoy doing it, is bliss.- Tom Rachman
I hesitate to speak for other writers, But I certainly feel that the writing itself, if you enjoy doing it, is bliss. The act of doing that, of that creativity and having a sense of where it might go and being both the creator and the reader of this thing that is taking shape before you on the screen or on the paper, is an absolute thrill if you enjoy that kind of work. And I do, and so I sit there and become completely captivated.
Do you suffer from imposter syndrome?
Probably. I think one should feel like a bit of an imposter. I think it's useful. I think that if you feel too certain of where you are, then you're maybe not paying attention. That it's a funny thing with being a writer generally, that you have no right to be doing what you're doing.
So you're doubting yourself all the time. Which is probably why writers and other people in the arts are totally mad. So that might explain my mental state.
Dora also has an almost transactional way of looking at the world where she sees people in reality as potential fodder for books. What's the cost of plundering life for material?
Dora has devoted her life to this artistic pursuit. She sidelined everything else in the determination to write books that were worthwhile, that meant something, that somehow created a world and other human beings that she couldn't quite connect with in her own life.
You could imagine it as a substitute for her inability to quite connect with the people. She would conjure them and produce a world that felt truer to her, that felt somehow it was under her sway — whereas the real world never was. She hoped to produce something valuable and lasting from that.
When I'm going through difficult patches in my life, I find even more solace in the writing.- Tom Rachman
It's certainly not something I've deliberately planned out. But over the course of a number of books, you end up creating a world of the kind of things that you write. Without being able to define exactly what it is, it becomes very important and powerful to you, and in some respects it can feel like an alternative to the actual world when the actual world is painful and disturbing. When I'm going through difficult patches in my life I find even more solace in the writing.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
