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The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir

by Laurie Sandell (Goodreads Author)

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46 · rating details · 967 ratings · 235 reviews

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...more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published July 29th 2009 by Little, Brown and Company (first published July 18th 2009)

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Aug 13, 2009 K rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comicsandgraphicnovels, memoir

Sandell, who has the somewhat enviable job of interviewing celebrities for women's magazines, recounts in graphic novel form how she grew up awed by a magnetic, brilliant father who claimed all manner of extraoardinary achievements, and how in adulthood, she discovered he was basically a liar, con-man, and narcissist. Despite intriguing premise, charming bright illustrations, and high production value (full color pages on glossy thick paperstock), not especially engaging on emotional level. The...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Ashley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: adults, graphic-novels

I picked this up because it was a Fun Home readalike. I enjoyed reading it and it was entertaining enough, but it was missing something essential for me. Maus and Fun Home are two other graphic novel memoirs about children of a father who has a complex story. Spiegelman and Bechdel both take up several panels acknowledging the gray area that is exposing your family stories in a graphic novel. Sandell acknowledges that her family does not want her to write this story, but doesn't explain why she...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Wandering Librarians rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, dark, family, graphic-novel, biography

This was a bit surreal. As someone that was raised by a nice Midwestern Scandinavian family, it seems like total fiction that someone's father would con not only strangers and employers but also his family members and personal friends. Taking not only their money but also their trust and twisting it until you don't know quite where you stand with any of your relationships.

The experiences that Laurie goes through, the fact that she lived in Israel and was an exotic dancer in Japan, make it seem a...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Nicola rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, no-longer-own

Reason for Reading: I love memoirs; I love graphic memoirs. The shady dealings grabbed my interest.

The author is a journalist who mostly spends her time interviewing celebrities. She is currently an editor for a well-known fashion magazine and has written for many well-known magazines. She grew up very close to her father who was an awe inspiring man (sometimes fear inducing) who was a former Green Beret, fought in Viet Nam, held 4 prestigious diplomas and spoke several languages. But when Lauri...more

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Nov 21, 2010 christa rated it 2 of 5 stars

When Laurie Sandell, if that is her real last name, was growing up, her father would have the mail stopped every time he went out of town. If, by some twist, Laurie did get her hands on the delivery, she would find envelopes addressed to all sorts of people she had never heard of.

The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell, a chronicler of celebrity stories and editor at Glamour, is a graphic memoir recounting a childhood spent with a mysterious father who haslarger-than-life stories of honors, aw...more When Laurie Sandell, if that is her real last name, was growing up, her father would have the mail stopped every time he went out of town. If, by some twist, Laurie did get her hands on the delivery, she would find envelopes addressed to all sorts of people she had never heard of.

The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell, a chronicler of celebrity stories and editor at Glamour, is a graphic memoir recounting a childhood spent with a mysterious father who haslarger-than-life stories of honors, awards, medals, and elbow rubbing. Sandell, his favorite of his three daughters, is always trying to please him, and likes to leave little funny drawings for him to find. As she gets older, and they disconnect a bit from their original clique, she starts to question the truth in the fantastic stories he has told her. Does he work for the CIA? Who is this guy? And why in the hell did he open multiple credit cards in her name, and completely demolish her credit score before she's ever even pursed her own plastic?

She begins investigating her father, with plans to write an article for a magazine about his life and lies. At first he is totally game. He spends hours with her talking about killing people and almost being killed and jail time and the biggie bigs he's called friends. She records these sessions, and then starts fact checking. No, he didn't graduate from that university. No, he never worked there. Looks like he borrowed a shitton of money from a family friend, never paid it back and ruined the chance for future dinner parties. And he is wracking up some serious debt. Her mother, meanwhile, ignores all of this. Continues to give him, as she says, the benefit of doubt.

As a journalist, I'm not sure why Sadell went the illustrated memoir route. She can obviously write, she's a professional writer. Her drawings are more from the spare and realistic vein, and they are fine. She doesn't take advantage of the panel space. No extra details. No hidden jokes. No foreshadowing or clues to the time period the story is set in. It's a bit of a waste. Especially in the case of this story: Dude, her dad is a total fraud. And as she investigates his claims, he appeals to her emotionally with reminders of family loyalty and vague suicide threats. This is compelling stuff that could have been an epic, if not award-winning, word book. It's a total page flipper, even for it's faults.

The side stories, too, seem to strip away some of the skin from the meat of all of this. Sandell inserts her relationship with Ben, an guy she meets online with whom she develops a long-distance relationship. It's a lot of mixed emotions, on again off again, and I believe it is meant to illustrate the point that: Look. My dad fucked me up so big time, that I don't even know what I want with this nice and normal dude from California. She's also building up her tolerance for Ambien and mixing it with wine. And then there are these celebrity interviews that land her across the table from the fluffy haired and sunglassed sect. She's clearly enamored with her job among the rich and famous, which she explains by noting the way her father's larger-than-life stories have made her crave larger-than-life, oft-photographed super people. Unfortunately, paired with a drawing of all the celebs she has interviewed, it seems unprofessional and name dropp-y. (Ashley Judd, for instance, is one of the supporting characters in the story).

There is just so much potential here with the base story, that was all whittled away because of some bad decision making about delivery. I wish she had a do over. (less)

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Oct 26, 2010 Ciara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, autobio-memoir, read-in-2010

a graphic novel/memoir about a woman exploring her relationship with her father, men, herself, & her addiction to sleeping pills after discovering that her father is a life-long pathological liar. sound interesting? i thought so too. the reality was a little less awesome. i guess my issue is just that i know something about crazy parents & i have a really hard time feeling sympathetic to grown adults who allow their dysfunctional relationships with their crazy parents to ruin their lives...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

I know I've got a gender bias, but I think women are the masters of autobiographical comics. I know there's Jeffrey Brown and even R. Crumb, but didn't Aline Kominsky-Crumb set the whole genre in motion? This graphic memoir reminds me of Cancer Vixen in tone and art, but channels Fun House for me in Sandell's search to understand herself by understanding her father. I love her honesty and humor and her struggle to know herself, which I think is what makes women's autobiographical comics unique....more

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Jan 22, 2010 Alyce (At Home With Books) rated it 4 of 5 stars

My first thought upon receiving this book was that the title was mispelled. However, according to Webster's Collegiate Dictionary "impostor" can be spelled as it appears in the title, and it can also be spelled "imposter" (which was the spelling that I knew).

Having satisfied my inner spelling geek, I was able to crack this book open and settle in for a fascinating read. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is a graphic memoir. The drawings are easy to comprehend and remind me a little bi...more

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Dec 13, 2009 Elevate Difference rated it 5 of 5 stars

The disenchantment of our parents, when we realize they’re humans too, is an unpleasant event of growing up. We all handle it differently. For Laurie Sandell, she put it into a graphic novel, The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir. In a little less than 250 beautifully painted pages, Sandell shamelessly shows each and every skeleton in her closet—starting from childhood and ending as her young adult self—and the battles she fights to expose the lies about her larger-than-life father and form a n...more The disenchantment of our parents, when we realize they’re humans too, is an unpleasant event of growing up. We all handle it differently. For Laurie Sandell, she put it into a graphic novel, The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir. In a little less than 250 beautifully painted pages, Sandell shamelessly shows each and every skeleton in her closet—starting from childhood and ending as her young adult self—and the battles she fights to expose the lies about her larger-than-life father and form a new identity in that truth.

Growing up on the east coast, Sandell was the eldest of three daughters, and her father’s favorite. She spent her childhood idolizing him and forming her identity in his stories of historical and academic greatness. He had a Ph.D. from Columbia University, earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Vietnam, and corresponded with a not-yet-christened Pope John Paul II. Doubt enters Laurie’s mind when she discovers in college that her father had taken out many credit cards in her name, unbeknownst to her. With over two hundred thousand dollars in debt and a father who couldn’t give a proper explanation, Laurie hits the road. She traveled for four years, a time when she says: “I was willing to be anything, try anything, as long as it didn’t resemble the life I was living before.”

The heaviest ball drops when Sandell returns from her escape. After an evening of sharing anecdotes with a friend in publishing, Sandell agrees to write an article about her father’s adventures. Routine fact checking revealed that her father wasn’t as extraordinary as he claimed to be. She proceeds with the article against her family’s wishes, exposes the lies he told, and becomes estranged from her father. However, Laurie doesn’t get the satisfaction she expected: “Nothing had changed: my family continued to be insistently blind to the truth. I remained the lone voice of protest.”

Things begin to look up for her when she lands an admirable job interviewing celebrities. However, she continues to be haunted by her father’s deceit. She battles with an addiction to sleeping pills mixed with red wine and drastic weight loss. She explains to the rehabilitation center she eventually enters: “My alcohol use? Not much—two or three glasses a day. Of course I drink alone: I’m single.” Without fear or lack of comic relief, she shows the inside of rehab, confrontations with her parents and the ultimate serenity she finds within herself. After more than ten years of searching for peace in her relationship with her father, Laurie simply says: “I gave up.”

The strength of this book is the way in which Sandell presents her story. In a more classic format, the experience of The Impostor’s Daughter would be lost. The ability to evoke emotions (light and heavy) subconsciously through images makes this book unforgettable. She possesses a humble and often comic tone in her writing. Both voices work harmoniously to neutralize the series of traumatic events in her life. The Impostor’s Daughter is a cathartic work that will make you reflect on your own relationship with your parents. It shows us the painful, scary, and frustrating process of going from gullible and impressionable children of our parents to self-defining confident women—something we can all appreciate and laugh about sooner or later.

Review by Sara Custer(less)

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Oct 19, 2009 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, graphic-art, memoir

I have been tapping my foot impatiently over this book; I heard Sandell interviewed on some NPR show and couldn't wait to get it. My library had it in its system since sometime back in JUNE and somehow it only NOW got onto the acutal SHELVES of the library where one could actually get one's HANDS on it. HMPH!!!

But I don't think my impatience really colored my opinion, I swear. I love the artwork, and I liked the story, but I have to say I found this a tiny bit shallow. And I feel like there were...more

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Sep 28, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, humor, arc

Flipping through The Imposter's Daughter the colorful images really appealed to me, just as the cover had. I knew that The Impostor's Daughter was not a book to be read in bed. I got an iced tea, went out on the deck and started reading. I was immediately HOOKED! I love hearing stories about people's families, the soil and nutrients from which the plant grew, so to speak. Learning what went in to making the person I know.
Laurie Sandell, the author and illustrator of The Impostor's Daughter broug...more Flipping through The Imposter's Daughter the colorful images really appealed to me, just as the cover had. I knew that The Impostor's Daughter was not a book to be read in bed. I got an iced tea, went out on the deck and started reading. I was immediately HOOKED! I love hearing stories about people's families, the soil and nutrients from which the plant grew, so to speak. Learning what went in to making the person I know.
Laurie Sandell, the author and illustrator of The Impostor's Daughter brought me right into her home. I always enjoy imagining scenes when I am reading, but having the illustrations made the image of her curled up listening to her dad's fantastical stories about his life more vivid. He treated her as his special princess, taking her on special daddy-daughter outings and even telling her she was his favorite. Laurie's actual cartoons from her childhood show her father as an angry huge head with a wart on his nose, strange from Daddy's favorite. When Laurie was twelve, her father lost his job as a college professor and many things changed. Her mother returned to being a teacher, and her father began sitting around the house in his underwear working on deals and brooding to the point of raging at his family, causing Laurie and her younger sisters to avoid bringing friends home.
Laurie shares with us her college life, first boyfriend, and four years of traveling the world, thinking she was searching for the adventures of her father, but in reality a lost soul searching for herself. Over the years Laurie begins to question her father's legitimacy as different financial schemes come to light, including taking out credit cards in his daughters' names and running up huge debts in their names. This piques her curiosity about the stories of Daddy working for the CIA, sitting in on the National Security Council and having multiple degrees from prestigious universities. Two years of taped interviews with her father, and with his former colleagues and traveling to Buenos Aires for research and to meet his estranged step-sister brought about the amazing graphic memoir The Impostor's Daughter.
I was so entranced by Laurie's tale that I read the book in about three hours, only stopping to come in the house and eat lunch. For a very young woman she has lived an extraordinary life and the plant that grew from the soil and nutrients of her childhood and young adult adventures is an honest, interesting, and talented writer. I cannot recommend this book with greater enthusiasm than I have shown here, especially for those looking to try a graphic novel for the first time. Be sure to visit Laurie's website where she has a great video showing pictures from the book and her narration explaining her motivation and process.

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Aug 25, 2009 Mandy rated it 4 of 5 stars

A month or so ago the publishers, Little, Brown sent me a copy of this interesting story. I've been slacking. I read it right away, but I've been dealing with school starting up and just being plain to lazy to blog. But this does deserve to be talked about.

I had no idea what to expect. Honestly, I wasn't even aware that it was a memoir. The title is interesting in that mystery and or romance sort of way. Then I flipped through it....expecting to see print. Nope, pictures. At this point I was a b...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Impostor’s Daughter by Laurie Sandell was the first graphic book I’ve ever read. I’m not sure if I would have ever picked up a graphic anything, if this book hadn’t been a memoir. The idea of mixing the two seemed like an easy way to broach the genre. And two hours later, I had read the book cover to cover.

The author decides to write an article on her remarkable pop. While fact checking, she uncovers that his stories are fiction. More research uncovers lawsuits stemming from bad business de...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Glenn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I really enjoyed this "graphic memoir". It was a unique concept. The author told the story of her life using a cartoon format. Her father was a very mysterious man while she was growing up and he seemed larger than life to his daughter, telling stories about heroic actions in Vietnam and working a clandestine job for the government. Later she grew to realize that he was not the man he said he was, and seemed to be involved in underhanded and illegal dealings.

She goes on to tell about her college...more

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Jul 18, 2009 Gaby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arcs, nonfiction, reviewed-books, summer-reading, graphic-memoirs

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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 wit...more 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.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (July 29, 2009), 256 pages. The book will be available on July 29, 2009 but can be ordered in advance through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Powells.

Courtesy of Hatchette Books Group.(less)

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Jul 23, 2012 TC rated it 3 of 5 stars

This really is a book about the impostor's daughter, and not the impostor himself, who remains a mystery until the end. Instead, the author presents a brutally honest (or at least non-sugarcoated) story of her own problems; problems with trust, addiction, and commitment, stemming--she supposes--from that failed relationship with her father and a lack of support from the rest of her family to confront him over his complex web of lies. Clearly the honesty she presents, warts and all, is meant to b...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

This is the first time that I ever read a graphic novel and I had been wondering if I would like it. But, I was hooked from the first sentence. "Whenever my father went out of town, he had the mail stopped." The story was engrossing. She grew up with her father as her hero because of all of his tales of how wonderful he was. He picked her out of the family, not his wife and two other daughters to concentrate charming her. I wonder if this is key to her later writing this book.

Everything started...more

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Jul 09, 2010 Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Disclaimer: I got this book for free.

“The Imposter’s Daughter” is a memoir of Laurie Sandell tells her coming of age story in the shadow of her father. The book is in a graphic memoir (read: comic book format) and seems to be poignant and honest.

We meet Laurie as a young girl who is enamored by her father’s tales of self-glorification. However, unlike the character of Ed Bloom Senior in the wonderful movie “Big Fish”, Mr. Sandell actually believes his own propaganda. Laurie’s father doesn’t do...more

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May 09, 2013 Marsha rated it 5 of 5 stars

As a child, Laurie looked up to her dad. He told fabulous stories about his life. However, it turned out it was all lies and he was a schemer and a bullshitter. He opened credit card accounts for Laurie and put her into debt, borrowed thousands of dollars from a friend for a fictional business deal and never returned the money. He lied about his educational credentials and taught college until the truth was discovered. Because of her father’s betrayal, Laurie had trouble trusting men and writes...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Kathleen rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like Sex and the City

Shelves: biography, comics, non-fiction, read-in-2010

This is the very honest biography of a woman I could never possibly relate to. The story of a father who is a con-artist and the daughter who grows up with an emotional disconnect told through the medium of comics was intriguing for all the obvious reasons. The fact that I was unable to connect with the characters probably speaks to Sandell's honesty: she is a self indulgent celebrity hound who feels a driving need to publish her family's secrets.

Lets explore that for a moment. This story isn't...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Erika rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: rich-bitches, graphic-novels

If strong language offends you, please do not read this review. Or at least please don't complain to me about it.

I thought this was going to be more interesting. I think if Sandell would have gone into more depth about her father and his secrets instead of turning this into a rehab story this book would have been more successful.

I understood her feelings of wanting to know the truth, getting all the family secrets out in the open, trying to understand her father's (and mother's) life. I didn't...more

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Dec 10, 2009 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This colorful adult graphic novel surprised me because it isn't a cute and fluffy read like the bright colors suggest. It's a memoir, describing Sandell's relationship with her father. Growing up, she idolized him because his stories were larger than life. He met celebrities and heads of state. He was a hero in Vietnam and graduated from NYU and Columbia and had taught at Stanford. But he also had bad days--grumpy, mean, and depressed. Sandell's world revolved around his father and his moods. As...more

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Aug 18, 2011 John E. Branch Jr. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

The title and the cover illustration could not be more suggestive, more appropriate to this graphic memoir. As a young adult, Laurie Sandell found her own identity defined by, in some way concealed behind, that of her father. And he isn’t rendered as such in the title—he’s a man pretending to be someone he isn’t. As with the cover, so with the contents: behind mostly bright and cheerful colors, and beneath her quick, light-toned narration, Sandell’s tale is darker. Even the straightforward, chro...more The title and the cover illustration could not be more suggestive, more appropriate to this graphic memoir. As a young adult, Laurie Sandell found her own identity defined by, in some way concealed behind, that of her father. And he isn’t rendered as such in the title—he’s a man pretending to be someone he isn’t. As with the cover, so with the contents: behind mostly bright and cheerful colors, and beneath her quick, light-toned narration, Sandell’s tale is darker. Even the straightforward, chronological line she takes from her childhood to the conclusion has a few twists.

The book deserves a thorough appraisal, which I hope it was given by a capable reviewer somewhere; my usual go-to, The New York Times, seems to have skipped it. For my part, I’ll describe The Impostor’s Daughter as a quest, for particularly elusive quarries—the worthy ones are always elusive: hidden family secrets, how to accommodate the past, how to shore up the foundations of a self undermined at home. (It’s also a coming-of-age tale, but those who’ve labeled it a “graphic novel” seem simply wrong, and to me the quest aspect is deeper, more resonant.) Her father is the chief target of her investigation; he’s got enough of brilliance in him to teach college economics despite, she finds, having lied about his credentials, but his chief brilliance is in self-fabrication, and Sandell’s discoveries about him extend through much of the book. Her multiple quests take her beyond him and her immediate family, though: an addiction figures in, and a problematic romance, and a genuine friendship with a movie actress whom she interviewed as part of her job.

How does it end? As happily as can be expected. The crucial detail that delighted me was this: Sandell reaches a conclusion by beginning to write the story we’ve been reading. For her, quite likely, writing the memoir is the conclusion: it put a cap on the rest of her efforts, was a way of encapsulating her past, reducing its potency, guaranteeing her break with the family way, for having written and published this, she can no longer, if she were ever tempted, resume the pretenses that the rest of them still live with. The ending is also a fabulously neat way of wrapping up. The end of the tale in the book leads to the existence of the book; the beginning of her writing leads us back to the beginning of our reading here. Thus her line becomes a circle. That’s an imaginative flourish, thrilling in its way, and not the only one in this artful, disarming, and charming tale.(less)

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Aug 24, 2009 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars

To be fair, I am not sure if I am rating this book "it was OK" as opposed to "I liked it" because it truly was merely OK, or because I am not at all used to this format. I guess you would call it a graphic memoir, meaning, comic book style--each page is filled with drawings complementing the rather spare narrative, with dialog taking place "speech balloon" style. It is a kind of neat treatment, and it almost feels like you are sneaking a peek at the (very detailed & colorful) spiral notebook...more

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Aug 18, 2009 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got this book and finished it within 1-2 days of getting it. Its a Graphic novel -- like Watchmen but the pictures were more relatable. Its the story of a women trying to solve the mystery of her father and lies he told while growing up.I liked that it showed her relationship, and even some people she interviewed for her job. She is addicted to ambien and then it shows her recovery and what happened afterwords.

This is her first novel and memoir and I do agree the story does stay with you , but...more

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Jul 29, 2009 Jennifer (Crazy-for-Books.com) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-non-fiction

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! Becaus...more

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Nov 12, 2011 Sesana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiographical, drug-addiction, comics, nonfiction, weird

Laurie Sandell grew up hearing her father's stories about his time as a Green Beret in Vietnam, his medals, his PhDs, his time teaching at Stanford, and his thriving business investments. In college, she applies for a credit card, only to find out that her father had taken out multiple cards in her name, and the names of both of her sisters, and her mother's name... Digging further, she discovers that her father has no college degrees, never taught at Stanford, never got a medal in the army, and...more

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Aug 15, 2010 David Rush rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The more I read, the more I enjoyed the Imposter's Daughter. Until about ½ way I wondered if the driving story (obvious from the title) was really all that shocking and if it justified a full length Graphic Memoir. In comparison to Fun Home by Alison Bechdel this seemed a little weak in the dark family secret genre.

But now I think it is that telling the family secret is obviously central to the book, the tale is more than just the being a daughter of a volatile liar, it about her struggling to...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Megan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

Not what I expected -- another reviewer called this book a "bait and switch," and I guess that's my issue with it. I don't really enjoy reading rehab stories or "I'm just not that into him... or am I?!" stories, even less so when the person writing them leads a lifestyle of the Chateau Marmont-staying, Ashley Judd-befriending, bi-coastal variety. (There but for the grace of whatever go I.) There just wasn't enough about the father's story or even her crazy world travels to keep my attention here...more

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Sep 23, 2009 Wallace rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, memoir

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 (...more 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)(less)

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About Laurie Sandell

Laurie Sandell has written for Esquire, GQ, Glamour, Marie Claire and InStyle, among others, and has contributed cartoons to New York, Glamour, and the Wall Street Journal. Her first book, the graphic memoir The Impostor’s Daughter, was nominated for a 2009 Eisner Award. Her new book, Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family, was published by Little, Brown on October 31, 2011. She liv...more

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