Andrew Porter | Book Chatter

The Imagined Life
By Andrew Porter
Knopf, April 2025, 288 pp.

The Short of It:

You know that feeling of gently working your way through a story because it’s just so good? No? Read this.

The Rest of It:

Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy. ~ the publisher

Steven’s family lives in a nice, Orange County neighborhood. His parents host pool parties, movie nights and are surrounded by academia everywhere they look. Their friends, professors themselves. They talk education and research and accomplishments. This is a touchy subject.

Steven’s father is brilliant and happily married but his quest for tenure at the university puts a strain on his marriage and family. This is where I tread carefully when I say that the undue strain of jumping through academic hoops to prove his worth leads him down a path of no return.

Let me paint the picture. Warm California evenings, a cabana house, plentiful liquor and jovial conversation. Attractive, powerful colleagues and a man who wants that for himself. The casual, friendly interactions fueled by drink, slowly become something more.

Twelve-year-old Steven senses a shift as he watches these parties unfold. Observing these parties from the privacy of his room, he notices the familiarity of good friends but also the tension, mostly in how his own mother reacts to what is going on.

What is going on?

Steven is very close to his mother so when she returns to the house after these parties, he knows she is hurting. He’s not entirely sure why or what he can do for her, but he feels compelled to be there for her.

What he does, is gently explore his father’s thoughts. Walking out to join him after the guests have left. Listening to his plan to publish his book and earn tenure. As good a guy as his dad is, Steven knows that he’s a dreamer. Never has been much of a realist. He takes this with a grain of salt.

For a young boy, navigating the delicate nature of his parent’s marriage and also figuring out what he desires for himself, proves to be complicated.

We see Steven as an adult, dealing with his own personal issues but ever present is his quest to figure out what happened to his father that year he went missing. When everything blew up and his father left without a trace.

This is a tender story about so many things. Family, the relationship between a mother and a son, a father and a son, Steven’s coming of age and how all of it influences his own family as an adult. It’s about identity and value and sacrifices made for the sake of your family.

The last few chapters were breathtakingly beautiful. I re-read them, sat with them awhile and felt the weight of Steven’s memories.

So good.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

In Between Days
By Andrew Porter
(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307273512, September 2012, 336pp.)

The Short of It:

Nothing is easy when a man’s family falls apart.

The Rest of It:

I love dysfunction. Love it. I’d eat it up if it was on a plate in front of me. There is something fascinating about watching a family disintegrate before your eyes. Especially when you are doing it from the comfort of your home with happy “family” sounds in the background. The family portrayed in this book could be friends of mine, or the neighbors across the street. There is a realness to them that could not be ignored and that’s why I think I liked the book so much.

The story centers around the Harding family, Elson, a struggling architect, his ex-wife Cadence, his gay poet son Richard and his wayward daughter, Chloe. The fallout of their divorce is still lingering in the air, but both Elson and Cadence try their best to move on by starting relationships with other people. But it’s awkward for both of them. Cadence, having known nothing else but the role of mother and wife is now trying to understand who she is. And Elson, struggling both at work and at home, drowns his pain in drink. In the mean time, Richard doesn’t seem to be comfortable in his own skin and Chloe has been suspended from college for something that remains a mystery throughout most of the story.

As with most families, they come together in crisis and the crisis here is Chloe and her suspension from school. Ultimately, Elson is a good father. He loves his kids and realizes the mistakes he’s made, but his movements going forward are complicated by his current love interest and the fact that in the back of his mind, he still loves Cadence. There is a little piece of Cadence that still loves him too, but it’s buried beneath years of resentment and frankly, there’s little time to explore it because Chloe’s situation proves to be a lot more serious than they originally thought. So serious in fact that Chloe disappears.

The mystery surrounding Chloe and her disappearance is strung out through most of the novel. The reader is given clues along the way. Enough to keep you reading and Elson’s frustration and concern over the matter is palpable. Chloe frustrated the hell out of me. She comes across as an immature, privileged little college girl. She’s oblivious to the fact that her entire family is worried sick about her and yet she continues to make bad decisions. I realized at some point, that although Chloe’s situation seems to go on for most of the novel, it’s really not at all what the novel is about. What happens with Chloe is secondary to what happens to the family that is left behind. The collapse of a family is what this novel is about and Porter captures that well.

My one complaint is the setting. The story is set in Houston but that doesn’t come across at all in the telling. In fact, there are a couple of references that made me think the story was set in Los Angeles. The mention of one fast food restaurant and a very popular (quaint) neighborhood made me go back in the book to see if I had been mistaken about the setting. This was a bit of a letdown. Only because I so often look for a sense of place in a story and here, especially when it comes to Chloe’s disappearance, I didn’t get that.

Even with my little quibble above, I must say that I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The writing is genuine and effortless. It’s Porter’s first novel but I’ll be on the lookout for future books.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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