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Prolific and popular writer Paul Theroux turns himself on his ear in My Other Life, the "story of a life I could have lived had things been different," as told by another Paul Theroux. The book, arranged in sections that resemble stories more than chapters, traces a life that at times looks quite a bit like Theroux's real one; at other times not at all. He treads the familiar ground of his Peace Corps days in Africa that some readers will recall from My Secret History. The story then careens through Singapore, London, marriage, writing, family, and divorce. And it is not only Theroux who is a walking contradiction in this work; other characters explore the notion of two lives, giving the sections a unifying subject and a resounding theme.
Book Description
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).