Theroux, Paul

My Secret History

ISBN: 0399134247
New York, NY, USA: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1989. First American Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. "'I know exactly what to do,' I said. And I was pretty sure I did, you know." (final sentences, pg. 511). American novelist & travel writer Paul Theroux's (b. 1941) My Secret History is a semi-autobiographical novel that follows one man, Andre Parent, across roughly thirty years of his life, from a Catholic adolescence in Massachusetts to a successful but morally divided middle age as a writer. It's built as six long, almost free-standing sections, each of which reads like a novella and captures Andre at a different stage & in a different world. Andre's double life is the engine of the whole book. He is outwardly a respectable husband & father, but he conducts a steady stream of affairs and keeps an entire hidden self (the "secret history" of the title) running in parallel to his public one. The drama of the final section comes when his concealment collapses and he's forced to confront the woman he loves & the gap between the man he appears to be & the man he actually is. My Secret History is often praised for the vividness and momentum of its individual sections while drawing more mixed reactions to Andre himself, who is a deliberately unsympathetic, self-absorbed narrator. Theroux was born in Massachusetts, the third of seven children & son of Catholic parents. After finishing his university education at University of Massachusetts Amherst, Theroux joined the Peace Corps in 1963 as a teacher in Malawi. At the time, the Peace Corps was relatively new, having sent its first volunteers overseas in 1961. Theroux helped a political opponent of Prime Minister Hastings Banda (1898 or 1906-1997) escape to Uganda. For this, he was expelled from Malawi and thrown out of the Peace Corps in 1965. After publishing his most famous novel The Mosquito Coast in 1981, all of his books were banned in South Africa due to Theroux being "politically undesirable" and openly critical of colonial & white-minority regimes. See Item No. 7504 to read Theroux's one-and-only full-length play "White Man's Burden." From the collection of Barbara (1935-2023) & Irving (1933-2018) Nusbaum - world travelers, connoisseurs, eminent collectors of art & books, and the dearly beloved late parents of our esteemed founder, Arthur S. Nusbaum. Hardcover in Unclipped Dust Jacket: First American Edition, as stated at copyright page, first printing, as indicated by number sequence thereon. A most collectible semi-autobiographical Theroux bildungsroman in its rarest contemporary form with very distinguished provenance. Book in relatively fine condition with mild-to-moderate age-toning, spot-staining to front & back covers & spine; mild rubbing to fine edges of same; moderate age-toning & mild rubbing to text block. Interior fine with moderate age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of page leaves. Dust jacket fine with moderate age-toning to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild rubbing/wear & creasing to fine edges of same. Fine / Fine. [Item #9029]

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