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A review by gilmoreguide
A Fine Imitation by Amber Brock
2.0
There is the cold, trainer kind of a mother whose only interest in her daughter is as a thoroughbred who may be married off to someone who will enhance the family line. And if that gent has no interest in his new bride, well, she will have been suitably well-taught to channel her energy into shopping and gin and tonics. Lorna Longacre is one such woman and her daughter Vera, is no more likely to oppose her mother than she would be to try heroin. A senior at Vassar she’s never even been to a football game, used slang, or had a drink. Of course, it is 1913, but her new friend Bea Stillman (of the Atlanta Stillmans) has done all of the above and she’s determined to help Vera live before she’s married off. These are the early days of Amber Brock’s debut novel A Fine Imitation. A decade later and Vera has achieved the goal of marrying an appropriate man and now lives in a NYC penthouse. It takes two separate incidents: running into Bea again and the co-op board bringing in an artist to paint a mural in one of the building’s rooms, to make her wealthy life feel distinctly poor.
Some of the aspects of A Fine Imitation are fascinating, namely the proscribed life of wealthy young women in the first half of the 20th century. In modern day America these are the girls who go without underwear, spend money like water, and laugh at the very idea of “the family name”. Shame is an unknown concept today, but for Vera the fear of her mother means she never believes she has options. She isn’t allowed to graduate from Vassar because she needs to plan her wedding and she’s married to a virtual stranger, but she must either behave or be cut off completely. Brock writes well and captures the feel of 1920s Manhattan society and what is a familiar ‘poor little rich girl’ plot is jazzed up with a twist on Vera’s marriage. A Fine Imitation is just that. A perfectly fizzy bit of chick-lit historical fiction.
Some of the aspects of A Fine Imitation are fascinating, namely the proscribed life of wealthy young women in the first half of the 20th century. In modern day America these are the girls who go without underwear, spend money like water, and laugh at the very idea of “the family name”. Shame is an unknown concept today, but for Vera the fear of her mother means she never believes she has options. She isn’t allowed to graduate from Vassar because she needs to plan her wedding and she’s married to a virtual stranger, but she must either behave or be cut off completely. Brock writes well and captures the feel of 1920s Manhattan society and what is a familiar ‘poor little rich girl’ plot is jazzed up with a twist on Vera’s marriage. A Fine Imitation is just that. A perfectly fizzy bit of chick-lit historical fiction.