Jacob Rubin's The Poser is darkly funny

The central character in Jacob Rubin's The Poser is a young man with the ability to instantaneously and flawlessly imitate anyone.

Encouraged by his mother and discovered by a hack agent, Giovanni Bernini goes from being ridiculed and, often, feared by his small-town peers to garnering widespread acclaim as the world's "greatest Impressionist". The rest of his arc of fame follows a trajectory at which cynics will knowingly nod, and Rubin's precise and inventive writing wonderfully captures the enigmatic character as he travels this arc as well as the philosophical questions such a character raises.

The Poser is an exciting debut and can be recommend for its noirish beats. It is also richly, darkly funny. The novel is set in a fictional country that resembles the United States of the 1940s and '50s.