The Impostors — Thomas William Simpson

The Impostors Marriage. Quite an institution. A life sentence of hard labor for some. A joyous, fulfilling walk in St. James Park in June for others. For most of us, holy matrimony lies somewhere in between. Like life itself -- an endless rollercoaster ride ridden blindfolded with no end but death or divorce in sight. Say “I do” and you're in wedlock. Wed-lock. Like a head-lock on the emotions. The conjugal bond. It is, without question, God's greatest practical joke on big-brained mammals. The Impostors takes an… unusual look at white, middle class, American marriage. Like an ultra-skinny swimsuit model, it is a look both complex and sensual. Complex because Park and Vera are so much like us that we have no choice but to think they are nothing like us at all. And sensual because on the surface Park and Vera are so appealing and erotic, but just below the surface lurks frailty, anxiety, and fear. Park is a big game hunter in Botswana. Africa. But when not hunting he lives in a center hall colonial in a posh Boston suburb with Vera and their three children. When it's time to go to work he flies off to The Dark Continent and helps well-heeled fat-cats slaughter large starry-eyed mammals. While back home Vera is slowly falling apart. Already amped up with a whole host of bi-polar issues, Vera has begun to see her life as a miserable failure and longs to do something vital, something magical, something to make people -- especially Park -- sit up and take notice. So what does Vera do? She invites her southern belle mama up for a visit, and then, in the middle of the night, she skedaddles. Off to another part of darkest Africa she goes, intent on making her way to an orphanage run by an American lady recently portrayed as a saint on the cover of Time. Park gets word of his beautiful, entirely crazy wife's disappearance and sets off on a journey across the Heart of Darkness to find her. Love. Lust. Marriage. Money. Murder. Guns. Violence. Child rearing. Public education. Fathers. Mothers. Ebola. Boko Haram. Sleazy real estate developers. Race relations. Grass. Booze. Rock n roll. The Meaning of Life. The Impostors. It has depth, humor, pathos, love won, love lost, maybe hopefully love for all of eternity.