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Laurie Sandell grew up in awe (and sometimes in terror) of her larger-than-life father, who told jaw-dropping tales of a privileged childhood in Buenos Aires, academic triumphs, heroism during Vietnam, friendships with Kissinger and the Pope. As a young woman, Laurie unconsciously mirrors her dad, trying on several outsized personalities (Tokyo stripper, lesbian seductress, Ambien addict). Later, she lucks into the perfect job—interviewing celebrities for a top women's magazine. Growing up with her extraordinary father has given Laurie a knack for relating to the stars. But while researching an article on her dad's life, she makes an astonishing discovery: he's not the man he says he is—not even close. Now, Laurie begins to puzzle together three decades of lies and the splintered person that resulted from them—herself.
In this delightfully composed graphic novel, journalist Sandell (Glamour) illustrates a touchingly youthful story about a daughter's gushing love for her father. Using a winning mixture of straightforward comic-book illustrations with a first-person diarylike commentary, Sandell recounts the gradual realization from her young adulthood onward that her charming, larger-than-life Argentine father, bragging of war metals, degrees from prestigious universities and acquaintances with famous people, had lied egregiously to his family about his past and accomplishments. Growing up with her two younger sisters and parents first in California, then in Bronxville, N.Y., the author records signs along the way that her father, a professor of economics with a volatile temperament and autocratic manner, was hiding something, from his inexplicable trips out of town, increasing paranoid isolation, early name change from Schmidt to Sandell, to massive credit-card fraud. Interviewing her father for her first magazine article, the author resolved to check his sources and even flew later to confront his past in Argentina, only to discover the truth. Feeling betrayed, guilty for exposing him and mistrustful in her relationships with men, Sandell numbed herself by abusing Ambien and alcohol. Her depiction of her rehab adventure is rather pat and tidy, and she does not address the notion that her own creativity might have sprung from her father's very duplicity. However, Sandell's method of storytelling is marvelously unique and will surely spark imitators. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Laurie Sandell is a contributing editor at Glamour, where she writes cover stories, features, and personal essays. She has also written for Esquire, GQ, New York, and In Style, among others. In her twenties, she spent four years traveling around the world, having unsavory experiences she later justified as "material."
Anonymous
Posted July 10, 2012
this book is a great book. the best there is!!!!!!!
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Posted January 23, 2012
Here i am. What in the name of starclan happned back there?!?!!
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Posted January 10, 2012
I purchased this after reading the author's book on the Madoff family. It left me feeling as though I'd been ripped off (although certainly not to the extent of Bernie's investors). The book is nohing more than a series of rambling thoughts headlining middle-school quality drawings. It looks like the result of an assignment somebody got in therapy yo deal with childhood issues.
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Posted November 24, 2011
Story was good, but for me, it was hard to get beyond the fact I was reading a graphic novel. In a book, I feel you get to know the characters more
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Cocopuffy
Posted February 23, 2011
I was not a huge fan of this book mostly because the author comes across as extremely immature. This book seems like a long way of putting all of her problems on her dad. It just felt horribly unfair. She blames drug addiction, eating disorder, bad relationships, etc. on him. And yet, she didn't seem to think her dad's possibly rough childhood was a justification for his problems. This whole book seemed very self-serving for the author and I was annoyed with her by the time I had finished the book. I would have really regretted reading this book had the author not been such a talented cartoonist, which is why I gave it the rating I did.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I had never read a graphic novel before The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell, and had never planned to. However, this book kept popping up on my computer screen while I was doing other research, and then again at the library. I was walking past a display and there it was, literally front and center. At this point I still didn't realize it was a graphic novel, but when I picked it up and opened the pages, I couldn't put it back on the shelf. I had read three pages in the course of a minute (which isn't hard to do -- remember, graphic novel basically means comic book novel). From the little I've seen, I thought graphic novels only catered to techy/ comic book obsessed guys or asian teenagers. But, like when I found Betty and Veronica in the sea of boring boy comics when I was younger and growing up with a comic book obsessed big brother, I found that I could partake in this genre as well.
The Impostor's Daughter is a memoir. It explores the author's recovery from an unhealthy lifestyle that manifested from an unusual childhood; growing up with a con-artist father. Usually I am not interested in reading about people's lives if they aren't someone I am familiar with before-hand, but somehow the style of this book made reading it feel less like a commitment. Sandell has had plenty of experience writing for magazines (some of which I read), and therefore she knows how to hook this twenty-something's attention. Her story is interesting, but it was the genre she chose to express it through that kept me reading. Which I did. In roughly an hour.
Grab yourself a copy and see if you aren't as entertained as I was. Worst that can happen: you've got a graphic novel under your belt and can say with authority what you think of them.
As for me, I'm sold -- well partly; as long as they are expressly written for my demographic to enjoy and have pictures of people who look like actual human beings. Next up in this department, The Complete Persepolis.
(originally posted on www.coconutlibrary.typepad.com)
I was surprised to see that this book was really a graphic novel. Perhaps someone somewhere in their review had mentioned it, and I interpreted that to mean that it "was graphically descriptive". So let me make this clear: this is a graphic novel, in that it is cartoonish drawings telling a story.
This was an entertaining story, and it was interesting to see the transformation that Laurie Sandell went through from a little girl who idolized her father to an adult woman who demonized her father to a more reconciled adult who seemed to accept her father more for who he was, and by the end of the story seemed to understand the idea of forgiveness.
This is a cute story and a quick read.
Here was my immediate thought when I opened The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell "Holy Toledo Batman it's a comic book!!". Ok, I guess it is technically an autobiographical graphic novel, but it was my first thought. I don't know how I missed that fact, but it wasn't really publicized that way. Anyway, I am not going to lie I was disappointed - I don't usually read graphic novels. Since Hatchette Book Group had given me the book with the intent to review it, and the plot really did sound good I said to myself, "JUST READ IT!" I'm glad I did. Itwas a quick, enjoyable read.
The story begins during Laurie's childhood. Laurie not only loves her father, but is proud and enamored by all of his experiences. This is a man who has been a war hero, had friendships with famous people, and was extremely intelligent. He had degrees from NYU and Columbia and had been a professor at Stanford. As a child Laurie spent all of her time listening to his stories and working to earn his approval. As his "favorite" child she was the boss over her sisters. Unfortunately as his favorite child she was also the one that bore the brunt of his anger as she got older. He liked to tell her it was their similar personalities and because of her pride in him she liked to believe it.
When Laurie reached high school she realized her father was different than others and began to worry. She began questioning her father's stories, but then left it alone. In college she received a rude awakening when she found her father had used her identity for credit card fraud. From that point forward the relationship between Laurie and her father began to go downhill. Laurie spent many years searching to find herself. It was if learning that her father wasn't honest caused her to lose who she thought she had always been. If she had always been just like him then who exactly was she?
As an adult Laurie began an in depth search to discover exactly who and what her father was. The last half of the novel focuses on this journey. It led to family issues and personal disconnect from relationships. She also found herself with an ambien addiction and inablity to cope with life in general.
I found this to be a very easy to follow format and an interesting story. In fact, I finished it in two sittings because I couldn't seem to put the book down. I appreciated the brutal honesty of the story. This was about her father and his lies, but it was also about Laurie and her personal story of growth. She puts it all out there...every failure, embarrassment, addiction, you name it.
I found I was able to connect with Laurie, but there weren't any other characters to bond to in the novel. I felt not only anger, but sadness toward her father. He seemed to have created his fantasy world due to his upbringing. However, he had delved so deep into it that even when confronted he was never honest. Most of the other characters are only in the background...they are a product of what Laurie and her father have done.
An important note: Because she is so brutally honest and the story is in pictures you should watch where you read it. Cartoon pictures of naked women were a bit embarrassing when sitting in my work breakroom. They were done to tell the story not to be x-rated, but still not good to be in public and open to those pages.
I wasn't sure what to think when I cracked open this book! The story is told in comic book style, with illustrations and thought bubbles! I have never read a graphic novel and I wasn't sure if I would like the style in which the book was written. I have to say - I just closed the book after finishing it in less than 24 hours and I am extremely impressed with how the author, Laurie Sandell, put this story together. This style works extremely well for this story and I am so happy I read it! Because of all the illustrations, the book reads very quickly, so it's possible to finish it in one sitting. Don't be put off by the illustrations, though - the story itself is engaging and thought-provoking. The only caution I give is this. There are comic illustrations of nudity, so just be careful where you are reading this book!!
Laurie Sandell grew up in awe of her father and all of his mesmerizing stories. As she gets older, she begins to question her father and learns that he is not who he says he is. As Laurie digs deeper into her father's life, she struggles to learn who she really is along the way. This is a coming-of-age story that will keep you quickly turning the pages to see what will happen next! Definitely recommended!
Synopsis:
The Imposter's Daughter: A True Memoir is described as a "graphic memoir" because the cartoons are supposed to be largely nonfiction. The work is divided into two main parts. In Part One of The Imposter's Daughter, we follow Laurie Sandell from her childhood hero worship of her father through the slow discovery of his lies and deception to how this experience shaped Laurie's early adult years. Charismatic, good looking and confident, Laurie knew her father to be a former green beret with a law degree from NYU and a PhD from Columbia University who served as an economist and advisor to Henry Kissinger and had grown up with fabulous wealth in Argentina. He was larger than life and full of exciting stories of his past, his teaching career, and the businesses that he was working on. As the eldest and his favorite child, they shared a special bond. But after her father left the post as an economics professor, he spent his time at home and became increasingly paranoid, eccentric controlling. As his life unravelled, so did their closeness. It wasn't until after college and when she was applying for her first credit card that Laurie discovered that her father had taken out credit cards and thousands of dollars of debt in her name. Justifiably upset, she contacted her family - and they learn that he'd taken out credit cards and loans under all of their names. Their house is nearly lost from under them. Laurie's life is fluid and she decides to spend the next four years exploring the world. She travels to Israel, Japan, Jordan, Paris, Egypt, Mexico, and Thailand, undoubtedly breaking hearts while experimenting. She works as a stripper in Tokyo, seduces lesbian women in Israel, and grows addicted to presciption drugs. Laurie returns to America and works as a secretary by day while researching and writing about her father's deceptions at night. Part One ends with the publication of Laurie's article "My Father, the Fraud" in Esquire Magazine.
In Part Two, Laurie starts work at a popular woman's magazine where she excels at celebrity interviews and builds her reputation. She discovers that she has a gift for building relationships with celebrities - "most of them lived in emotional castles surrounded by moats, and I'd been building a tower around myself for thirty-two years." While she builds her professional life, Laurie slowly becomes addicted to prescription drugs. Although her relationship with her father and family deteriorates, but Laurie continues digging into her father's past. Reaching out to distant acquaintances, strangers, and estranged family, Laurie slowly pieces together her father's life.
Review:
I had intended to just glance through the book and somehow read it all in one sitting. The first surprise was that the entire work is a graphic memoir - a "nonfiction cartoon" written and illustrated by Laurie Sandell. The book is beautifully done - from the cover and the drawings to the writing and pacing. It worked together so well that I find it hard to believe the story is true, although it likely is, after all it's even called The Imposter's Daughter: A True Memoir. Warning: some of the graphics are explicit. The book targets an adult audience.
This as a fun summer read. I'm looking forward to more of Laurie Sandell's work in the future.
Thank you to Hatchette Books Group for the opportunity to review the book.
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Posted December 28, 2011
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Overview
Laurie Sandell grew up in awe (and sometimes in terror) of her larger-than-life father, who told jaw-dropping tales of a privileged childhood in Buenos Aires, academic triumphs, heroism during Vietnam, friendships with Kissinger and the Pope. As a young woman, Laurie unconsciously mirrors her dad, trying on several outsized personalities (Tokyo stripper, lesbian seductress, Ambien addict). Later, she lucks into the perfect job—interviewing celebrities for a top women's magazine. Growing up with her extraordinary ...