The Impostor

by Damon Galgut

When Adam moves into the abandoned house on the dusty edge of town, he is hoping to recover from the loss of his job and his home in the city. But when he meets Canning - a shadowy figure from his childhood - and Canning's enigmatic and beautiful wife, a sinister new chapter in his life begins. Canning has inherited a vast fortune and a giant folly in the veld, a magical place of fantasy and dream that seduces Adam and transforms him absolutely, violently - and perhaps for ever.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, South Africa, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Contemporary, Novels

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor and The Impostor. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. The Imposter was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He lives in Cape Town.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Impostor at times reminded me of The Magus by John Fowles and at times of Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee but in fact Damon Galgut stays on his own territory all the way through.
The novel is highly intriguing, subtly intellectual and fraught with moral ambiguities.

It comes to him that time is the great, distorting lens. Up close, human life is a catalogue of pain and power, but when enough time has gone past, everything ceases to matter. Nothing that people do to each other will carry any moral charge eventually. History is just like the ground down there: something neutral and observable, a pattern, a shape.

The past and the present are interconnected in the weirdest ways and our memory distorts the past and thus plays the tricks on our present.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

UNA RISTRETTA CERCHIA DI ESSERI VIVENTI



Una zona del Sudafrica che sembra sperduta, una piccola città con un solo albergo, una terra marginale fra le montagne abitata da gente che non gradisce i forestieri, una casa abbandonata con un giardino invaso dalle erbacce che sconfiggono ogni tentativo di pulizia.

Una sistemazione piuttosto inospitale, che però si adatta ad Adam Napier, ai tempi del collegio soprannominato Pannolino perché se la faceva sempre sotto: Adam è rimasto disoccupato a quarant’anni, il fratello gli offre la sua bicocca di campagna, così Adam si trasferisce per avviare il piano B, pensa che potrebbe ricominciare a fare il poeta come a vent’anni, quando riuscì a pubblicare una raccolta.



Le cose non vanno come previsto, l’ispirazione non viene, le poesie non si scrivono da sole, e neppure le erbacce spariscono con un colpo d’occhio, per di più il vicino di casa è inquietante.
Adam incontra Kenneth Canning, un compagno dei tempi del collegio, di cui non ha nessun ricordo, mentre invece Canning sembra molto affezionato ad Adam.
Canning è ricco, ha ereditato una grande proprietà che sta riconvertendo in un circolo di golf, fa affari con governanti, locali e nazionali, e con criminali, stranieri e indigeni.
Ha una moglie molto bella, nera, e con gli occhi verdi. Adam se ne innamora, ma Galgut non riesce a spiegare bene perché, si ferma al come, la donna non si delinea, è un personaggio abbozzato, l’origine dell’infatuazione rimane nella tastiera.



A un certo punto fa capolino un inizio di trama thriller, c’è la possibilità che la storia diventi all’improvviso un noir, una specie di postino che suona sempre due volte, che Adam e Baby, la donna, si trasformino in due diaboliques.
Ma lo spunto, per fortuna, si perde, e non è certo il momento migliore del romanzo.

Romanzo che è un mezzo passo falso per Damon Galgut, scrittore che ho iniziato a leggere da pochi mesi, e ho subito apprezzato (In una stanza sconosciuta, Il buon dottore).



Questa volta il suo Sudafrica è più manicheo del solito, la corruzione dilaga, bianchi e neri vivono e agiscono solo per i soldi. Si fa fatica a credere che le cose siano così disastrose, in fondo non siamo mica in Italia.
I personaggi sono più deboli del solito, non perché non ci si riesca a identificare in loro, o perché non risultino coinvolgenti, ma perché tutto appare più meccanico, più ‘costruito’, meno convincente, come se seguisse passo passo una scaletta decisa a monte.

[João Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zona de Karoo - África do Sul


O escritor Damon Galgut (n. 1963) é uma das vozes incontornáveis da literatura sul-africana; finalista em 2003 do Man Booker Prize for Fiction com ”The Good Doctor” e em 2010 do Man Booker Prize com ”Um Quarto Desconhecido”.
Adam Napier é um homem tímido e introspectivo, está numa encruzilhada da vida, ”Um conjunto de circunstâncias lamentáveis conduziram Adam àquele ponto. Se as coisas tivessem seguido o rumo normal, ele não estaria ali, mas havia algum tempo que a sua vida era tudo menos normal. Tudo sucedera uns meses antes, quando dois acontecimentos simultâneos tinham ocorrido para a sua desgraça. Primeiro perdera o emprego e depois ficara sem a casa.” (Pág. 23); primeiro, demitido do seu emprego, vítima da “africanização”, isto é, acabara substituído por um estagiário negro, com o pretexto do aumento das cotas raciais; segundo, a questão da casa decorre da sua incapacidade de prever a degradação da zona habitacional de Joanesburgo onde a comprara, associado à impossibilidade de pagar o empréstimo bancário.
Em consequência, Adam tem que recorrer ao seu irmão Gavin, três anos mais novo, que disfrutava agora de uma posição social e financeira inigualável, à custa da construção – refira-se, especulação - imobiliária na Cidade do Cabo.
No entanto, Adam, não aceita a oferta de emprego do seu irmão, decidindo que neste período de interregno tem que se dedicar a escrever poesia; ele que publicara, no passado, um livro intitulado ”A Espada Flamejante”, uma pequena edição local que vendera apenas umas centenas de exemplares.
Gavin possuía uma casa abandonada – em péssimo estado de conservação e com um terreno dominado por ervas daninhas - nos arredores de uma cidade reservada aos brancos, na zona inóspita e remota de Karoo, uma área entre a Cidade do Cabo e Joanesburgo; o local ideal para Adam refazer a sua vida pessoal.
Entre a procura da inspiração e os trabalhos domésticos - a solidão e a embriaguez instalam-se na vida de Adam, até que surge Kenneth Canning, um homem que encontra por acaso na rua e que lhe diz que ele lhe salvara a vida nos tempos da escola que partilharam na infância.
Só que Adam não se lembra absolutamente de nada, nem sequer se recorda de Canning, mas decide entrar no jogo, pelo facto indesmentível de este referir, entre outros factos, o da sua alcunha de infância – que aliás detestava, por motivos óbvios – “Fraldas”.
Canning vive nas proximidades, numa extensa, idílica e selvagem propriedade denominada Gondwana, habitando uma majestosa mansão, usufruindo de uma colossal fortuna herdada do pai (que o renegava), com uma bela e enigmática mulher negra de nome Baby.
Bom, não vale a pena acrescentar muito mais…
A narrativa evolui após este encontro estranho, Canning é uma personagem memorável, uma mistura entre uma criança sonhadora inocente e um homem de negócios corrupto, com uma mulher negra deslumbrante e obscura; com ambos a exerceram um fascínio e uma atracção a Adam com consequências imprevisíveis.
As duas personagens – Adam e Canning - acabam por estabelecer uma relação desequilibrada decorrente da desproporcionalidade e do desequilíbrio de afectos – para o qual nem sempre encontramos explicação plausível.
As temáticas de ”O Impostor” não são transcendentais, inovadoras ou, sequer, arrojadas; o seu enquadramento geográfico, político e social é, obviamente, específico mas pode ser facilmente transposto para outras latitudes ou para outros países, incluindo, Portugal.
A escrita de Damon Galgut é imaculada, profundamente eficiente, claramente acessível e compreensível, apresenta uma inusitada habilidade para enquadrar e descrever os cenários da narrativa com a imagem ou os comportamentos e as atitudes das personagens; melhorando substancialmente quando adiciona novos elementos narrativos, evoluindo o romance para um thriller, com relações perigosas, profundamente sinistras, com um desfecho surpreendente.
”O Impostor” é um excelente romance, por vezes, sombrio, numa crítica feroz a uma sociedade sul-africana contemporânea – com uma fragmentação social implacável e hedionda, dominada por um espírito materialista e cruel, com destaque para a temática do desapontamento e da desilusão pessoal; sobre as relações familiares complexas, traições e paixões exacerbadas e intrincadas; sobre a corrupção moral e política – com destaque para as questões relacionadas com o licenciamento e os estudos de impacte ambiental (EIA) na concessão de direitos de construção para urbanizações e campos de golfe (logo eu que adoro golfe e campos de golfe); para os assuntos relacionados com o surgimento das máfias do leste europeu e os seus negócios obscuros; e muito, muito mais…
Ja, gostei.
Adorei o final…
A dúvida permanece - quem é O Impostor?

Nota: Destaque para a criteriosa tradução de Fátima Alice Rocha, nomeadamente, na tradução dos termos técnicos utilizados no golfe (quer no que se refere ao jogo, quer no que se refere, especificamente, ao campo) - com notas de rodapé excepcionalmente elucidativas.

[Semjon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vor paar Monaten las ich Galguts In fremden Räumen und war total begeistert über die Erzählweise und das in drei Kurzgeschichten verarbeitete Thema Reisen. Mit dem Betrüger wurde ich aber nicht richtig warm. Ich zog immer wieder andere Bücher vor. Letztlich betrug die Lesezeit zwei Monate, was eine Rezension erschwert.

Positiv fiel mir wieder der ruhige Schreibstil des Autors auf, der zwar auktorial ist, aber doch immer aus dem Sicht des Protagonisten vorgenommen wird. Die Geschichte handelt um den Ausstieg des beruflich gescheiterten Adam, der in die südafrikanische Provinz zieht, um sich als Dichter neu zu erfinden. Aber das ruhige Paradies in der Ödnis des Berglands täuscht. Die Vergangenheit holt ihn ein und zieht in ein Dreiecksverhältnis mit einem ehemaligen Schulfreund und dessen hübscher Ehefrau. Canning, der Schulfreund, an den sich Adam gar nicht erinnern kann, ist ein anbieternder Widerling. Man fragt sich ständig, was das Geheimnis hinter der Figur ist.

Die Handlung ist durchaus spannend, aber die Symbolik ist für meinen Geschmack zu überfrachtet und die Interpretationsmöglichkeiten immens. Was will mir der Autor sagen? Wie schwierig es ist, mit dem Vergangenheit zurecht zu kommen? Wie skrupellos das moderne Südafrika ist? Ist es eine biblische Parabel und warum haben die Protagonisten im Dreieck die Anfangsbuchstaben ABC? Ich hoffte auf Aufklärung am Ende oder zumindest eine nette Überraschung. Die blieb aus. Daher war es eine gute Lektüre, die aber keinen Nachhall wie die fremden Räume bei mir auslöste. Denn letztlich ist es ja egal, was der Autor mir sagen wollte. Wichtig ist nur meine Reaktion auf das Gelesene und die ist leicht stirnrunzelnd.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shallow Intimacy of The Impostor

(Exploring the Vortex with Damon Galgut)

Dear Damon,

When we met in Antwerp, I caught a glimpse of what my life might be like if my dream of literary fame and fortune ever came true. It was not a pretty sight. You had arrived in Belgium on your own, with a couple of interviews and appearances lined up. Then it was off to Amsterdam for a day, to meet with your Dutch publisher, before jetting off to Canada for a book tour (lasting a month, if memory serves). I’m sure this sounds like heaven to some, but the first thought that crossed my little, middle-class mind was: where would I leave the kids? Closely followed by: how would I gift wrap this as a pleasurable experience for my dear wife? So perhaps I’m projecting my own feelings on you when I say you seemed somewhat lost and lonely.

But that was before I read The Impostor, in which I also sensed a spirit of desolation, isolation, emptiness, desperation (delete one or more, as you see fit ). Am I correct in believing that the catalytic incident in the book – the chance meeting between two old schoolmates – derives from your own experiences at home and abroad? I can well imagine that there are times when people treat you like a hero and as if they know you intimately, whereas you don’t have the foggiest notion who they are. This sense of “shallow intimacy” is shared by almost all the characters in your book, exacerbating each of their personal flaws and ethical shortcomings. As if all relationships are merely pragmatic transactions, in which emotion is an obstacle rather than a driving force – a terrifying, almost biological take on human interaction.

I am sure some will see this as a drawback, but to readers like myself – who expect to be challenged and provoked by what they read – this sense of utter desolation and desperation, that prevails both within the characters and the world they inhabit, is testimony to the power of your writing. Even now, as I reflect upon your book, I feel a black hole opening up at my core, the vortex gradually growing, leaving me ever emptier, until I turn my mind to other things.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Galgut’s masterpiece The Good Doctor, The Impostor centres on the tense quasi-friendship between two men and has a singular, remote setting. Adam Napier is out of work and at rock bottom when he agrees to move into a near-derelict house – one of several properties owned by his more successful brother – in a small town on the edge of the Karoo. Adam passes the days alone, trying and failing to write poetry. Then one day, while shopping, he’s approached by a man identifying himself as Canning, who claims he knew Adam at school. Although Adam can remember nothing about him, he feigns familiarity and starts spending a lot of time with the man, who is incredibly wealthy and lives in an enormous, verdant game park. Adam is slowly seduced by Canning’s lavish lifestyle – and his beguiling wife Baby.

It’s only now I’m looking back over my review of The Good Doctor that I realise how many things the two books have in common: a lonely protagonist in an isolated place, hints of sexual tension between the two male (and ostensibly straight) main characters, a title whose meaning could be applied to several people in the book, a feeling that nobody is being truthful about themselves... I think it’s completely possible that, had I read The Impostor first, it would be on my list of favourites and I’d judge The Good Doctor slightly more harshly. Still, Galgut writes the sort of sentences and scenes that make you feel you are in the hands of a master, maintaining a page-turning mood of suspense even when little is happening. The weird stillness of the setting, a stripped horizon so vast it seems ‘human events were elsewhere’, only adds to that. It’s the kind of book I’d recommend to friends or family who don’t usually read fiction (which sounds a bit like a backhanded compliment; what I mean is that it has the rarer-than-it-should-be combination of being relatively simple yet also intelligent and gripping).

TinyLetter | Linktree

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

When he looked at the state of the world, he always shrank away in helplessness and horror; it seemed almost a duty, an artistic obligation, to replace politics with aesthetics. The fact that his life was empty of protest could feel like redemption at certain times, and at others—such as now—like a cause for guilt.

Sometimes it seems unreal that Mandela was elected president of South Africa in the 1990s. It feels as if it happened/should have happened earlier. What happened earlier was the struggle to get there. And yet it seems too recent. I say this because his presidency was a mark of post-apartheid transition in South Africa, the type of transition a reader would have to know in order to understand the sequence of this novel, as there is not enough depth to the atmospheric tension. Mandela's presidency introduced modern South Africa, where the Black African majority negotiated change that eliminated aspects of apartheid. It is this world that the main character navigates.

Adam is a disgruntled white man who has lost his job and home. He moves to the country to work on a poetry collection. He moves to brood, to start over, to do something that escapes the fact that Black people have moved into his neighborhood in Johannesburg and a young Black intern has been trained to replace him. To understand this cursory setup to the novel, a reader would have to be well-read about the background of apartheid and the restructuring of a postcolonial country; for example, the political negotiations between Mandela and de Klerk that made them both Nobel Peace Prize recipients and helped restore economic mobility for Black natives of South Africa.

The world around Adam is changing, South Africa is growing wiser, and yet it feels like he is left behind. His brother is thriving in real estate, doing business and making political deals with people of all races. Adam watches from the sidelines, refuses to get a job with his brother. He moves to a dilapidated house on the countryside that his brother owns. He settles in among the dust and dirt to write poetry. He befriends an eccentric neighbor, an elderly white man who lives alone and has secrets, secrets of horrible things he did for a racist regime. He keeps his neighbor a secret, even as he has an affair with his friend's wife, Baby. Baby is a Black woman he is both obsessed with and repulsed by, she represents the power struggle, she represents the many that once lived in terrible, powerless conditions but now have some agency. She is beguiling and mysterious; someone he has never encountered before. He wants to use her, to possess her. Instead, the opposite happens.

Even if the characters are unlikable and tensions of the setting are not properly defined or acknowledged (in some cases avoided), what I found intriguing was the portrayal of the helplessness and corruption of a postcolonial world. All of the characters are trapped in this new world they must navigate. They tussle to get power or to retain power. All are motivated by greed, for different reasons. What stands out from most of my postcolonial reads is that I had access to the point of view from a white character navigating a post-apartheid world. He is a passive spectator. He is unrelenting in his unwillingness to acknowledge why the world around him had to change, seemingly uncaring about human rights but invested in economic rights. Around him, secrecy is cloaked with shame as people hide despicable pasts in order to move forward and they lose some of the economic power they gained along the way. But sometimes shame includes giving up those things that were obtained from despicable secrets.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the moment i’m nearly ready with Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (there should be a review up by Sunday) but I thought i’d take a tiny break and read The Imposter and I finished it in two hours flat.

My first experience of Galgut was through The Good Doctor, which I felt was quite sinister but a wholly satisfying read. The good news is that The Impostor is even better, it’s Galgut at his peak.

Adam Napier is unemployed and homeless so he escapes from Johannesburg and visits his brother, Gavin in the hope that he’ll help him. Gavin offers Adam an old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Adam is pleased and thinks that he will start a new stress free life. This soon comes to an end through two people who step in Adam’s path.

The first one is his eerie neighbour Blom who has a dark past and secondly his old school friend Kenenth Caning, who thrusts Adam into a mess of corruption and bribes. The rest of the novel details Adam’s plight and his attempts to escape out of this new life.

Really this is a book about post Apartheid South Africa. Like Coetzee, Galgut maintains that it is a place of corruption and bribery and a land full of wanton destruction, going under the name of progress. All the characters are product of this new South Africa and Galgut indirectly hints that the country is going down the drain.

The Impostor is a page turner and Galgut has not only mastered his talent for making something creepy and full of suspense, but he has perfected it. I’m also pleased that this book tallies with Heart of Redness and also states that South Africa and the Xhosa tribe are in danger due to lack of sustainable development.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wheels within wheels

Melancholic - at times I needed to shake Adam a bit, those weeds were calling out to me.

Unfortunately 'free for all' in this case has more than one meaning, we can twist it around and see it as now South Africa embraces freedom for all, thank God but it also means that the sharks, the marauders come in to feed on the weaknesses as well. Sharks such as Genov, Canning or even Gavin. And Adam lies listlessly about.

Galgut's picture of South Africa is also the picture I get from a couple of my South African friends who had to leave to make a life somewhere else because of the present atmosphere in the country.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know if I can convey how much I was looking forward to this novel. I came across Galgut last summer for the first time; I read 'Quarry' first, and then 'The Good Doctor.' Both are excellent. 'Quarry' is a prose poem of a novel, a stark and haunting one. 'The Good Doctor' is more fleshed out but still conveys a harsh (and beautiful) changing landscape with questions of morality, authenticity, at its center. I would call both of these novels unconventional, innovative in their structure and style. So, read between the lines: I fell in love with Galgut. He even toppled Coetzee from his eternal position as my top favorite So African novelist, to become one of my top favorite contemporary novelists, period.

'The Impostor' reads like a mainstream novel, a watered down version of Galgut's concerns. The prose seems more pedestrian than inspired and the structure of the novel offers nothing new. But it's perhaps the characters which are most problematic; at its center is Adam, solipsistic, passive, trying to be a poet...a very boring unsympathetic person. Hard to have such a bland person at the center of your novel.

The introduction of the characters of Canning and Baby help a great deal, being charismatic, more complex in their layers of personality, past lives, their actions versus their intentions. They are attractive and repellent both.

But Adam never ceases to be tiresome and somewhat predictable in his bumbling ways, so the novels doesn't intensify in the way that the other work of Galgut does. Instead it reads like watered-down Galgut. Is this what happens? The writer writes from his core, writes out his burning self, and then can only access the surface from thereon out?
Depressing thought.

[Joy D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in post-Apartheid South Africa, Adam Napier loses his job and moves from Johannesburg to the rural area outside Cape Town to live in his brother’s dilapidated house. Years ago, he published a volume of poetry and now wants to return to the life of a poet by writing about beauty in the world. By chance, he runs into Kenneth Canning, who tells him they went to school together long ago, though Adam does not remember him. Adam becomes entangled in Canning's schemes, including a dubious plan to take revenge against his (Canning’s) father. As an added complication, Adam develops an attraction to Canning’s beautiful black wife.

As indicated in the title, the novel looks at the many ways people can become impostors. Canning’s imposture is obvious, but Adam’s self-deception is more indirect. Adam sees himself as a man of integrity, but he gets involved in Canning’s manipulations going along without speaking up. Adam is living off past laurels. He views himself as virtuous for retreating from urban life but remains disconnected from the world around him. His identity is constructed on what he no longer is, making him an impostor of himself. It is intriguing to observe the many ways Adam rationalizes his actions (or lack thereof). His passivity gets him into deep trouble.

This book provides many layers to unpack. It is one of the best books I’ve read about complicity. The storyline portrays both those who know they are doing wrong and passive bystanders who benefit from wrongdoing without directly participating. This novel is masterfully constructed, and I remained consistently engaged. It is not a comfortable read and not for those who need likeable characters, but I found it fascinating.

[piperitapitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un'altra africa.

Non è l'Africa romantica e crudele di Karen Blixen.
Non è l'Africa magica e crudele di Kuki Gallman.
non è l'Africa rivoluzionaria e crudele di Nadine Gordimer.
non è l'Africa vigliacca e crudele di Coetzee.
l'Africa di Dalmon Galgut è solo un' (Sud)Africa crudele, dove nessuno è quello che sembra e tutto si muove indolentemente, come una goccia che cade da un rubinetto che perde, lenta e inesorabile, scavando solchi e vuoti incolmabili, creando una frattura insanabile tra promesse e aspettative, in una stanca e ipnotica partita a scacchi che termina senza un unico vincitore, ma solo con un esponenziale numero di perdenti.
L'impostore di Damon Galmut è un romanzo che però non riesce a convincere appieno, fallendo nel tentativo di riuscire a creare empatia con almeno uno dei protagonisti della storia; nonostante riesca a costruire un clima appiccicoso e rarefatto, claustrofobico e ipnotico (così come scritto anche in copertina) non risponde pienamente a tutte le aspettative, l'interesse per i personaggi si affievolisce verso la metà del libro, il protagonista non riesce mai a guadagnare tutte le simpatie e l'insofferenza per i loro comportamenti, e molto più spesso per i loro "non comportamenti", a volte sfocia nel disinteresse, senza riuscire mai a dare la svolta (noir?) che il lettore si aspetta.
per quanto mi riguarda, considerando che la scrittura è scorrevole e che tutto sommato per buona parte della storia riesce a catturare l'interesse, sono tre stelle di attesa: aspetto la prossima prova letteraria.

Attenzione al finale: se letto troppo velocemente rischia di non essere compreso!

[Alistair Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s unnerving that I love Damon Galgut novels so much - his protagonists are unlikeable, sometimes despicable, and the general feeling is of one creepy unease. But I can’t put his books down.

This is the third novel I’ve read of his - the others being The Good Doctor and In A Strange Room - and it was probably my least favourite of the three, but even so it is excellent. His prose is bleak and beautiful, and his characters are so oblique and dark there’s something cathartic about being among them.

In The Impostor, Adam moves to a small Karoo town to make sense of his faltering life and to try and start again as a poet. He runs into an old friend from his childhood that he doesn’t remember and in the months that follow, Adam’s life changes in ways he could never have anticipated. A little like John Fowles’ The Magus, the book has a dark sense of unreality to it. It tackles isolation, guilt, lust, complicity and the shady underbelly of power in post-transition South Africa.

Galgut’s as good as Coetzee and I wish he got the same kind of recognition.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adding this in as I wasn't a GR member when I read it. It is on my mind as I am getting ready to read some even earlier work

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between 4 - 4.5

This novel didn’t quite reach the heights of The Good Doctor and In a Strange Room but that’s not to say this isn’t a great novel: almost Graham Greene-esque at times, my only criticism is that the only female character felt pretty one dimensional. Now to delve further into Galgut’s backlist…

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written novel about modern South Africa. Adam Napier loses his job and home. He moves to a run down house in the country owned by his brother to clean it up and write poetry. He runs across someone he was at school with. Adam doesn't remember him but Canning remembers Adam with great affection. Canning has inherited his father's estate and Adam spends weekends there with Canning and his wife. Canning intends to turn it into a golf course.
At times this is rather bleak and has a touch of the noir about it; none of the characters are particularly likeable and it is difficult to care about what happens to them. It's a good story about the oddities of memory, how the past can haunt the present, disillusionment (the old regime has gone but some of the old problems remain) friendship and betrayal. Add a spot of organised crime and gardening and it makes for a pretty good mix. I thought the last chapter was unnecessary but others may disagree. The title does sum up the novel; people are not always what or who they seem.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

After losing his job and also his residence in Johannesburg, Adam Napier decides to reset what had become his complacent acceptance of an inane and uneventful lifestyle. At the advice of his financially secure younger brother, Adam heads to Cape Town and then out to South Africa’s backwater countryside where his brother had purchased a home as a potential getaway. There in the secluded cottage, Adam intends to reconnect with his former literary ambitions and write a second book of poetry, a follow-up to a collection he published to minor success twenty years earlier.

A chance encounter in the countryside’s local town with an old schoolmate named Kenneth Canning sends Adam’s life careening in unexpected directions. Canning insists Adam saved his life in grade school, and he regards Adam as a hero. The problem is that Adam has no recollection of Kenneth or of any role he may have played in helping him. Intrigued, however, by the prospects of Kenneth’s wealth and his friend’s infatuation with him, Adam goes along until he becomes entangled in dangerous consequences involving Canning’s shady business ventures and his strange marriage to a gorgeous and alluring Black woman.

Damon Galgut assembles an intense, gripping drama in The Imposter that hurdles forward with tantalizing suspense towards a conclusion both satisfactory and revelatory. He uses the oddity of circumstances surrounding the friendship of Adam and Canning to expose the haunting, disgraceful remnants of apartheid, where injustice and corruption retain a chokehold on the country. With prose so clean and fluid you can taste the splendor of his words, Galgut’s attentiveness to the uneasy forces of race and coexistence in South Africa makes for a sobering examination of a country haunted by its past, yet hopeful for its future.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like The Good Doctor, Galgut's novel before this one, The Imposter is a compelling mix of thriller and parable, of thwarted idealism, written in a pared-down style, looking at the ideals of post-apartheid South Africa, exposing rapacity and corruption behind the talk of "reconciliation." Galgut uses a similar scaffolding here - a fast-paced plot, the action again taking place in a remote community - instead of a hospital, a small lifeless town in the Karoo, a man, Adam Napier, settling there, having lost his job, and deciding to try and resuscitate an earlier version of himself as a poet, leaving the world and finding in this small place a world he thoroughly does not understand, and loneliness, until he meets Kenneth Canning whom he does not remember from their years in boarding school. The strangeness of Canning's memories of Adam as his savior in their youth, Canning's hard and beautiful Black wife, his desire for revenge against his unloving father, the corruption not even so under the surface, menace opens and runs through this compelling novel.

[LeastTorque · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite by this author so far, with plot elements borrowed from noir. I had quite a bit of trouble with the voice for the first half or so due to too much telling. If the forgotten conversation was supposed to be a surprise when revealed at the end, well, it wasn’t. But perhaps it was intended as another in the long list of blind spots in the mind of the protagonist who, by the way, is such a mushy weasel.

As always, Galgut writes unsparingly of post-apartheid attitudes, here highlighting “liberal-reactionary” conflicts both internal and external.

This bit chilled me to the core with its parallel to another man child with daddy issues, he who shall not be named, and his obsession with wiping out the legacy of his predecessor:

‘I like to think of his rage and despair when he sees this place in my hands. And I go to sleep happy at night when I think of how I’ll dismantle his dream. Bit by bit, piece by piece. I’m going to savour every second of it.’

Shudder.

[Johan Thilander]

Egentligen en välskriven bok, men det finns något vagt gymnasialt över den som gör att jag inte riktigt kan ta den på allvar.

[Jen Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Damon Galgut is a writer I was introduced to last year, and had one of those "how could I not have known about this guy before" reactions. Both 'In A Strange Room' and 'Circle of Beings' showed a mastery of language, the power of understatement, and an incredible insight into people's complexities.

So I was thrilled to see him on the shelves in my new local library. Took this home with a mountain of other books, and gave it to my mum to read as I was still in something else. I said, 'He's a master. Remarkable.' And didn't really ask mum her thoughts as she was reading.

When she finished she talked more of the challenges and complexities of South Africa than of the book. But I only notice that in hindsight.

So starting out with terribly high expectations, disappointment was probably inevitable. What really surprised me was how over-written the prose is, and that's something that is off-putting in any novel, but when it's written by someone who has demonstrated such skill in giving the reader just enough…it felt like a completely different writer.

And that's ok. I support bands taking different courses in their genre/style/approach, and so to authors must branch out if it's how they keep inspired.

I will definitely read more of Damon Galgut's work, and perhaps this experience has been good for resetting my expectations. Although I'm pretty sure he's going to blow me away again.

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without a superfluous word Galgut brilliantly opens up the shifting dynamics of the new South Africa. Prepare to be left without any resolution of the moral ambiguity that will sit heavily with the astute reader. There is no redemption here. My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2015/01/07/in...

[Rick Lupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Der Betrüger" von Damon Galgut ist ein Roman über die Frage, wer wir sein wollen, was wir fähig sind zu tun, um uns zu ändern, und wie aussichtlos das ist. Außerdem ist es ein Roman, der sich über das wahnsinnige Verhalten heterosexueller weißer Männer in Südafrika nach der Apartheid wundert. Adam "Nappy" Napier ist der Hauptcharakter, ein abgehalfterter Möchtegerndichter in einer schweren Midlifecrisis, der sich aufs Land zurückzieht, um Gedichte zu schreiben. Dort begegnet er Canning, einem Bekannten aus Schultagen, der ihn wiedererkennt und ihn auf unheimliche Weise seit der gemeinsamen Schukzeit bewundert. Adam erinnert sich leider gar nicht an ihn. Trotzdem kommen sie sich nun näher - Adam besucht ihn wöchentlich auf seinem Land. Dort ist auch Baby, die Frau Cannings - eine Schwarze, die Adam sofort in ihren Bann schlägt. Die diversen problematischen Dimensionen, die dieser weiße male gaze Adams auf Baby hat, werden in diesem Roman sehr klug vorgeführt. Es ist ein Roman voller moralischer Dilemmata vor dem Hintergrund eines moralisch zerstörten Landes, in dem die brutale Vergangenheit allgegenwärtig ist und die Versprechen der Mandela-Zeit schon längst gebrochen sind. Ein tolles, schlau gebautes und scharfsinniges Buch. Galgut ist wirklich groß.

[Nick Shears · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Damon Galgut’s fine novel, The Impostor of the title is Adam Pienaar, a white forty-something office worker who’s lost his job to a black intern and is living alone in his brother’s rundown old house in the desolate, dry Karoo.

He tells himself and everyone else that he’s gone there to write poetry, as he had done in his distant youth. But while he fails to do so and instead falls into lassitude, a chance meeting with a high school acquaintance leads him in unexpected directions, entangling him with the kinds of people and the real world from which he was trying to escape in coming to the Karoo.

The ‘New South Africa’ of the time (2008) is in some ways itself a character. In particular, which person best represents it: Adam the would-be poet; Adam’s brother, the shady property developer; Canning, the schoolfriend seeking revenge on his cruel, late father; Beauty, Canning’s gorgeous black wife; Blom, Adam’s mysterious neighbour; or one of several others? Indeed, are they actually all the multiple facets of the new ‘Rainbow Nation’?

Galgut’s crystal-clear, fluid prose weaves character, landscape, metaphor, history and future into a vivid example of why his work deserves to sit alongside that of his compatriots JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Andre Brink.

[Sunil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review pending, but just wanted to say I was slightly let down by the ending. It lost a star because Damon couldn't ignore the typical novelist's urge to somehow tie all the loose ends into an ending. But reality carries on, especially in Africa where reality is more real than elsewhere; as much one can't overlook Africa's past one can't as well impose a desired end point. That's where Naipaul's 'Bend in the River' looms tall over every other book that deals with African themes. Nevertheless, ' Impostor' is a remarkable exploration of fluid identities in post-aparthied S Africa.

As of Damon - What draws me to his writing ? There are no smooth flowing lyrical sentences one often and for some unknown reason, in 21st century, still associates with 'good writing', but it's this grand obsession to record and convey to the reader all the events as they happen, with minimal erosion; it's an invitation to become the character than read about them. For instance,

Reality reassembles by degrees. First the sensation of the outer reaches of his body, and then everything beyond: the bed with its tangled sheets. The woman lying beneath him. The ochre floor splotched with sunlight that comes in through the shutters. And something else. A tiny sound, slowly encroaching. He can't place it, can't work it out. A faintly rushing noise, like wind or blood. An angel, dragging huge wings on the ground.


I swear that my journal or blog is full of such entries - passive and within to without. And, notice the complete irrelevance to conventional punctuation.

The richness of Galgut's prose is in documenting the 'internal mind' of the character, as if the readers' eyes are turned inwards to search for the characters in the book within his own mind than just imagine them exclusive of himself. I wish there was a writer of similar calibre who could explore the Asian 'internal mind' that largely remains unwritten.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's odd how many people see this as a thriller when, although to be sure it is unputdownable and one could say it is thrilling, it is anything but a thriller. For a start there is no hero, not even an anti-hero. Instead the main character is a weak, immoral, selfish man who plays at being poor for a while and hasn't a brave bone in his body. This is not to say one is unsympathetic to him, far from it. But he is never anything other than pathetic and the same goes for his next door neighbour and the Cannings. For another thing, nothing happens in the story: nothing that one could equate to the circumstances one expects in a thriller.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

[Anne Chappel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is an excellent portrayal of character and the complications of life in South Africa. loved the descriptions of landscapes. sparse language with poetic choice of words. Maybe it started slowly - but read it carefully as everything hangs together. meeting the strange neighbour, everything. I am a fan of Damon, and if you, bychance, read this Damon in your wanderings on Goodreads - may I say - very well done.

[Tundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great title as it really sums up where this story goes. When you pretend to be what you are not and make choices based on random decisions this may be the end result. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be Adam at the end of this book - imagining how an event he has no memory of unravels into a catastrophe like this. Galgut is very good at exploring the lives of people who have lost their way and the ramifications this has for those with overlapping lives.

[Paolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi domando cosa passa per la testa a certi critici ed agli estensori delle note di copertina che li citano:

"uno stile che ricorda Coetzee" - The Observer.

L'unica affinità che trovo è che sono ambedue sudafricani. Anzi Coetzee non lo è neanche più.

Libro leggibile e nulla più con modesta suspense, modesta critica sociale e personaggi sbiaditi ed antipatici.

[Bala Mudaly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Impostor is a bleak and compelling psychological thriller with moral underpinnings. The story is largely set in the Karoo, a remote barren part of South Africa. And the historical backdrop is the transition years after 1994 when the first democratic government is in power under Nelson Mandela.

The prevailing theme is one of self-deception, moral bankruptcy, corruption and crime in high places. Whites exploit the system to stay on top and in the process subvert Blacks. A disaffected young white man, Adam, has lost his job in Cape Town to a black man he trained. He withdraws to a little rural town to live as a brooding recluse – next door to Blom a criminal in hiding. He turns to writing poetry about nature. But he gives it up abruptly when he meets Canning who embraces him, claiming Adam had saved him from killing himself when they were in school together ages ago. Adam has no recollection of Canning or of this bizarre claim. This doesn’t, however, stop him from starting up an affair with Canning’s black girlfriend, Baby. Canning, in the meantime, is preoccupied with selling off his pristine wildlife sanctuary, inherited from his much-disliked late father, to a shady foreign syndicate who intend
to bulldoze the sanctuary and turn it into an upmarket golf resort. Adam is appalled but feels compromised to act.
I was drawn to Galgut’s evocative and stark style of writing which worked well in sustaining my interest. I found the moral tension, however, unsettling. The characters here seem somehow murky and formless – shadow people. I’m left undecided who, in the final analysis, was the impostor.