Cover art for The Imagined Life
Published
Europa Editions, November 2025
ISBN
9781787705906
Format
Hardcover, 288 pages
Dimensions
21cm × 13.5cm

The Imagined Life

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Due November 18, 2025.
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A taut, elegiac and engrossing read, The Imagined Life follows Steven Mills, a man in a struggling marriage who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about the father who vanished from his life when he was only twelve.

Driving up the coast of California, Steven seeks out his father's friends, family, and former colleagues, and is transported back to his 1980s childhood: his parents' legendary pool parties, black-and-white films on the backyard projector, his father's male friends in the cabana house... With every revelation his father becomes more difficult to recognize, and, with every insight, Steven must confront truths about his own life.

In cinematic prose, Andrew Porter explores the full nexus of male relationships: fathers and sons, husbands and lovers-set achingly against the US AIDS epidemic in the 1980s-and masterfully weaves a tale of trauma, generational secrets, forbidden love, and shame.

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