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Imposter
Published by Histria Fiction
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
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Table of Contents
About The Book
This historical novel is based on true events in the life of Johanna, the author’s grandmother, and starts in central Germany, her birthplace. She travels through two world wars to end up in The Netherlands.
Johanna’s father was an itinerant shoemaker from the eastern backwoods of Pomerania in the German Empire of 1880. Aching for a life of accomplishment and respect, Johanna resolves to escape her dad's fate of early death, the stigma of his mixed Slavic-German heritage, and the poverty that followed him. A headstrong girl, she refuses to be exploited as a housemaid for a wealthy family—the only choice for girls like her. She loses her job when the master of the house tries to rape her, and his wife walks in just in time.
With nothing to lose, she accepts a job as the concession shop operator with the railroad, assigned to travel with the construction crew across northern Germany. On her first day of work, she sets up shop (and home) in an empty passenger railcar and meets Hendrik, a Dutchman and the construction superintendent. Head over heels, they marry when Johanna becomes pregnant.
It doesn't take long before the first babies arrive—and continue arriving. Within three years, Johanna delivers five children, and the caboose becomes crowded. A railroad inspector drops in unexpectedly and bans the children from the construction site, so Johanna moves into the nearest town with the children.
While massive anti-Polish measures make life in the Empire difficult for Slavic people, Johanna hides her mixed Slavic ethnicity behind Hendrik's Dutch last name. When Germany joins Austria-Hungary in a new war—in the trenches too close to Hendrik's home country—Hendrik talks about returning home to neutral Holland. When Germany sinks American vessels, he's had enough and packs up his family in 1917 to move back home.
The couple buys a farm with their savings in Hendrik's hometown. The children grow up in peace and start families of their own. Not long after Hendrik’s sudden death, the Nazis invade, less than twenty years after Johanna’s arrival. It becomes Johanna's test of loyalties.
Johanna’s father was an itinerant shoemaker from the eastern backwoods of Pomerania in the German Empire of 1880. Aching for a life of accomplishment and respect, Johanna resolves to escape her dad's fate of early death, the stigma of his mixed Slavic-German heritage, and the poverty that followed him. A headstrong girl, she refuses to be exploited as a housemaid for a wealthy family—the only choice for girls like her. She loses her job when the master of the house tries to rape her, and his wife walks in just in time.
With nothing to lose, she accepts a job as the concession shop operator with the railroad, assigned to travel with the construction crew across northern Germany. On her first day of work, she sets up shop (and home) in an empty passenger railcar and meets Hendrik, a Dutchman and the construction superintendent. Head over heels, they marry when Johanna becomes pregnant.
It doesn't take long before the first babies arrive—and continue arriving. Within three years, Johanna delivers five children, and the caboose becomes crowded. A railroad inspector drops in unexpectedly and bans the children from the construction site, so Johanna moves into the nearest town with the children.
While massive anti-Polish measures make life in the Empire difficult for Slavic people, Johanna hides her mixed Slavic ethnicity behind Hendrik's Dutch last name. When Germany joins Austria-Hungary in a new war—in the trenches too close to Hendrik's home country—Hendrik talks about returning home to neutral Holland. When Germany sinks American vessels, he's had enough and packs up his family in 1917 to move back home.
The couple buys a farm with their savings in Hendrik's hometown. The children grow up in peace and start families of their own. Not long after Hendrik’s sudden death, the Nazis invade, less than twenty years after Johanna’s arrival. It becomes Johanna's test of loyalties.
Product Details
- Publisher: Histria Fiction (January 16, 2024)
- Length: 350 pages
- ISBN13: 9781592113767
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Raves and Reviews
I can’t get enough of stories with strong female characters who, when the chips are down, take risks that require them to grow, change and learn their own power. Johanna van Zanten delivers on that score in this well-researched historical fiction novel. The author clearly did her homework regarding the various locations, history and cultures. She also did a wonderful job of depicting a girl searching for how she fits into the world. Best of all, the book shows her living a brave and interesting life.
– Martha Engber, author of Bliss Road amd The Falcon, The Wolf and the Hummingbird
Johanna Van Zanten has created an intriguing story spanning two World Wars in Europe in her second novel The Imposter. Like her first novel "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" The Imposter explores the overwhelming decisions that must be made when one’s true heritage can destroy family relationships and cause pain and division between a mother and her children.
– Valerie Green, author of the McBride Chronicle series, for the BC Review
Because the writing and the story are so superb that you can’t put The Imposter down, it is a summer book (which is also why I am not detailing the story—no spoilers.) Once you start, you will consume its 274 pages in one afternoon by the pool. But then you will do what the usual summer fluff cannot inspire you to do, think. You will be richly awarded by both the reading and the thinking.
– Patrick O’Heffernan for the Lake Chapla News, Ajijic, Jalisco
The Imposter by Johanna van Zanten provides a sweeping overview of the war years in Europe. Her quotidian narrative is a carefully researched novel that follows the life story of a young woman and her family during a time of political unrest and far-reaching horror and devastation. Van Zanten lays bare the tensions within families as loyalties are tested and divided and individuals make painful decisions about their own allegiances in a struggle to survive.
– Lucy E.M. Black, author of Stella’s Carpet, and The Brickworks.
Because the writing and the story are so superb that you can’t put The Imposter down, it is a summer book (which is also why I am not detailing the story—no spoilers.) Once you start, you will consume its 274 pages in one afternoon by the pool. But then you will do what the usual summer fluff cannot inspire you to do, think. You will be richly awarded by both the reading and the thinking.
– Patrick O’Heffernan for the Lake Chapla News, Ajijic, Jalisco
I loved this book. First, ever since Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine I've been caught up in Ukrainian history, led from there to the Palatinates, Dutchies Great and small, Poland, Prussia, Hapsburgs, Germany, and the World Wars . . . so this was a welcome slice of the history of the region, but secondly and most provocatively was the author's dive into her grandmother's psyche as a "German."
– Carolyn Kingson, author of An Embarrassment of Riches.
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