My Secret History: A Novel - Softcover

Theroux, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 024195049X ISBN 13: 9780241950494

Publisher: Penguin, 2011

Synopsis

In My Secret History, award-winning writer Paul Theroux offers the reader an exciting insight into the double-life of Andre Parent in six compelling snapshots.

'Written with a rare intensity of both intelligence and feeling. . . a superbly realistic evocation of the journeys (both dark and comical) of the human heart' Salman Rushdie, Observer

'Nothing on the shelf has quite prepared the reader of My Secret History. . . Parent saunters into the book aged fifteen, shouldering a .22 Mossberg rifle as earlier, more innocent American heroes used to tote a fishing pole. In his pocket is a paperback translation of Dante's Inferno. . . he is a creature of naked and unquenchable ego, greedy for sex, money, experience, another life' Jonathan Raban, Observer

'Theroux's best creation, a character who is honest enough to know that he wants it both ways: to be the lover and also the solitary observer who betrays his loves by turning them into stories' Time

'Theroux's best fiction to date...combines the surfaces of memoir and travelogue with cunning fiction' Sunday Times

'Sharp, exact, very evocative. . . both disturbing and entertaining' Anthony Burgess, Independent

American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, My Other Life, The Collected Stories, The Lower River, The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro, A Dead Hand, Millroy the Magician, The Elephanta Suite, Saint Jack, The Consul's File, The Family Arsenal, The Mosquito Coast, and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic The Great Railway Bazaar are available from Penguin.

About this title

Product Description:

Roughly following the course of Theroux's own life, the greedy and self-centred Andre Parent progresses from gun-toting coming-of-age in Massachusetts to teaching with the peace corps in Africa, then on to a duplicitous life of travel, writing and women. First published in 1989, when the Sunday Times's critic wrote 'Theroux's best fiction to date ... combines the surfaces of memoir and travelogue with cunning fiction'.

Review:

"Merges the two genres he's famous for... My secret history is about the permanence of marriage in the face of mistrust and infidelity; it's about the wisdom of women and the foolishness of men; and it's about mature love as the necessary and sometimes successful antidote to youthful selfishness." -- the New York Times Book Review "Consistently entertaining... Theroux's hero is a man of ironic intelligence and amusing self-awareness." -- Time

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 024195049X
• ISBN 13: 9780241950494
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576