A Double Life

by Frederic Raphael

Book Overview

The life of Guy de Roumegouse is one of imposture, of playing roles, and of being constantly untrue to himself. In retirement in the south of France, he begins to write his memoirs, and in doing so... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 094577446X
• ISBN13: 9780945774464
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Catbird Press
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating

Noted screenwriter and novelist Raphael has written a dark story of self-deception and isolation that has a larger political scope. Looking back on his life, French diplomat Guy de Roumegouse writes a memoir that shows how distant he's always been from reality and his own feelings. His teenage years paralleled the approach to WW II and the war itself, and eventually the links between French wartime self-deception and hypocrisy and the narrator's psychic life emerge with surprising results. Raphael writes about warring couples better than anyone around, showing how they can launch nuclear strikes at each other with just a sentence. And because of that gift, the most effective parts of the book analyze Guy's failed first marriage.

Dark & Disturbing

This story of a French diplomat's life traces the ways in which duplicity plays out in all of his relationships, and ultimately destroys his first marriage. His conflicts over sexual identity, his role in the Resistance and even how much he can express of his true feelings create a sense of brooding doom. That's why when a murder takes place, you're both shocked and nodding, "Yes, I knew something bad would happen."There's no catharsis here, just beautiful prose as Raphael's narrator aphoristically tells his dark tale. And as he showed in "Coast to Coast," Raphael is a master at depicting a marriage collapsing into clever cruelty.