My Secret History

'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

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.

'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***