Synopses & Reviews
Life, to the hero of My Other Life, has no apparent plot, so it can seem messier than fiction--sometimes it appears that he is leading many separate lives. The only connecting strand is that they all involve the same person. The fictional narrator of these memoirs, a man of different guises, be it Pavel Medved, Paulie, or Paul Theroux, has reconstructed his past, giving it wit and life, tragedy and pathos, and imposed an order on it through careful editing. Inordinately fond of train travel, he takes us on a journey over a career spanning thirty years and distills it into poignant episodes. From his early education by his eccentric Uncle Hal, an unlikely author and lover of dog biscuits, we are taken through Theroux's years as a fledgling novelist in literary London, under the wing of the rapacious Lady Max, to his grief at finding himself alone again, at age fifty, in the town of his youth. With enormous insight and self-knowledge Theroux divulges his belief in secrets: the fake occup
Review
"among the strongest things Theroux has ever written" The New York Times
"Theroux's best and most entertaining book to date . . a seriously funny novel" Time Magazine
Synopsis
In the Washington Post Book World, Sven Birkerts called this exuberant novel "a complex and gripping work of invention and confession . . . I understood again how the prose of a true writer can bring us to a world beyond." The book spans almost thirty years in the life of a fictional "Paul Theroux," who moves through young bachelorhood in Africa, in and out of marriage, affairs, and employment, and between continents. It's a wry, worldly, erotic, and deeply moving account of one man's first half century - "among the strongest things Theroux has ever written" (New York Times Book Review).
About the Author
PAUL THEROUX's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.