"By turns revealing, hilarious, dishy, and razor-sharp, Impersonation lives in that rarest of sweet spots: the propulsive page-turner for people with high literary standards." -Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers Allie Lang is a professional ghostwriter and a perpetually broke single mother to a young boy. Lana Breban is a powerhouse lawyer, economist, and advocate for women's rights. With aspirations of running for office, Lana and her staff have decided she needs help softening her public image. That's when Allie is hired to write Lana's memoir about her life as a mother. Allie believes she knows the drill: she has learned how to inhabit the lives of others and tell their stories better than they can. But soon Allie's childcare arrangements unravel; she falls behind on her rent; her subject, Lana, is frustratingly aloof; and Allie's boyfriend decides to go on a road trip toward self-discovery. As a writer for hire and a mother, Allie has gotten too used to being accommodating. At what point will she speak up for all that she deserves? Impersonation tells a timely, insightful, and bitingly funny story of ambition, motherhood, and class. Heidi Pitlor is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage. She has been the series editor of The Best American Short Stories since 2007 and the editorial director of Plympton, a literary studio. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Huffington Post, Ploughshares, and the anthologies It Occurs to Me That I Am America: New Stories and Art and Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers. She lives outside Boston. "Looking for a book that fires up the synapses? Check out Heidi Pitlor's Impersonation . . . Pitlor's voice is witty and brisk, bringing warmth and light to questions of identity, independence and, yes, intellectual property. Who owns your stories? How much are they worth? Allie Lang's answers are complicated. Watching her reach them is like sitting down with a refreshingly honest friend who skips the part about how great her life is and dives right into the real stuff. We need more friends like this. Authors, too." -The New York Times Book Review "Both the story and its resourceful heroine are fresh, intelligent, and charming." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review "In a novel that's smart, surprising, thought provoking . . . Pitlor offers an astute study of what it means to be a woman today." -Library Journal "[A] searing and nuanced exploration of identity." -Booklist "Pitlor's smart and thought-provoking latest explores the complexities of feminism, privilege, and the telling of one's life story . . . 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." -Publishers Weekly "By turns revealing, hilarious, dishy, and razor-sharp, Impersonation lives in that rarest of sweet spots: the propulsive page-turner for people with high literary standards." -Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers "Smart, funny, and provocative, Impersonation tunnels through our current politically-charged American landscape with humor and empathy. It's a story of parenting-and surviving-in a time when the messy realities of everyday life often clash with ideology. As page-turningly readable as it is relatable. I'll be recommending to my book group." -Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle "Heidi Pitlor has written a wonderfully rare thing: a comedy of manners set in the 21st century that brilliantly grapples with some of the more thorny issues of class, privilege, and parenting of our day. Smart, funny, and generous in spirit, Impersonation is an engaging meditation on w

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