Impersonation

June 29, 2020
Pitlor’s smart and thought-provoking latest (after The Daylight Marriage) explores the complexities of feminism, privilege, and the telling of one’s life story. Allie Lang lives in a shabby Berkshires house with her four-year-old son, Cass, eking out a precarious living as a ghostwriter. After a lucrative contract ends when her client is charged with sexual assault, she’s delighted to be asked to ghostwrite a parenting memoir for wealthy attorney Lana Breban, whose high-profile feminist advocacy Allie admires and who, like Allie, is also raising a son. Ironically, Lana is too busy—and too reliant on full-time childcare—to provide the kind of intimate recollections her team has in mind for Lana’s book, which is intended to soften her prickly public image as she considers a Senate run. Allie’s already shaky support system collapses as her boyfriend, Kurt, decides to hitchhike around New England and her mother moves to Florida, leaving her desperate for time to work. With the deadline for Lana’s book looming, Allie begins fleshing out Lana’s story with her own recollections of raising Cass. While elements of the plot stretch plausibility, such as Lana’s team signing off on Allie’s embellishments, the sharply observed depictions of how lives are shaped by financial status ring all-too true. Fans of Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion will want to take a look.