An Imitation of Life

Celia Doom is a grotesque, a giantess with progeria, a syndrome that makes her body age at three times the normal rate. Her horrified mother left her, newly-born, on the nearest doorstep. Let’s not feel sorry for Celia, though. She is in part responsible for the devastation of her home town, Provencia (although the earthquake was not her fault). And she has been saved from a pitiable life by the gift of a camera. With this she documents the everyday lives of the townspeople as they pick their way through the wreckage that she has, to some extent, caused. Celia’s singular story is told as she prepares a narrative for her final retrospective photographic exhibition which will be shown at last in the capital. An Imitation of Life takes the reader into a bizarre world where the extraordinary characters are lively distortions of people we may know. Aside from cockroach-eating Celia, Uncle Ed can disappear himself as well as objects in his magic show. Her adoptive parents Barry and Lettie together run the Butchette, a building created from the remains of Barry’s Butchery and Lettie’s Laundrette after the earthquake. Her two strong-minded grandmothers - Grandma Lolly (who ran a sweet shop) and Grandma Stuff, the widow of a taxidermist - give moral support.