The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix: clever, captivating, and idiosyncratic. You won’t forget this novel

Paul Sussman’s first novel - one man’s riotous account of the 20th century - would, sadly, also prove to be his last.

‘My name is Raphael Ignatius Phoenix and I am a hundred years old - or will be in ten days’ time, in the early hours of January 1st, 2000, when I kill myself.‘ Raphael Ignatius Phoenix has had enough. Born at the beginning of the 20th century, he is determined to take his own life as the old millennium ends and the new one begins. But before he ends it all, he wants to get his affairs in order and put the record straight. That includes making sense of his own long life - a life that spanned the century. He decides to write it all down and, eschewing the more usual method of pen and paper, begins to record his story on the walls of the isolated castle that is his final home. Beginning with a fateful first adventure with Emily, the childhood friend who would become his constant companion, Raphael remembers the multitude of experiences, the myriad encounters and, of course, the ten murders he committed along the way … And so begins one man’s wholly unorthodox account of the twentieth century - or certainly his own riotous, often outrageous, somewhat unreliable and undoubtedly singular interpretation of it.