‘Written with a rare intensity of both intelligence and feeling

… a superbly realistic evocation of the journeys (both dark and comical) of the human heart’

Salman Rushdie, Observer

‘Nothing on the shelf has quite prepared the reader for My Secret History

… Parent saunters into the book aged fifteen, shouldering a .22 Mossberg rifle as earlier, more innocent American heroes used to tote a fishing pole. In his pocket is a paperback translation of Dante’s Inferno

… He is a creature of naked and unquenchable ego, greedy for sex, money, experience, another life’

Jonathan Raban, Observer

‘Theroux’s best creation, a character who is honest enough to know that he wants it both ways- to be the lover and also the solitary observer who betrays his loves by turning them into stories’

Time

‘Theroux’s best fiction to date

… combines the surfaces of memoir and travelogue with cunning fiction’

Sunday Times

‘Sharp, exact, very evocative

… both disturbing and entertaining’

Anthony Burgess, Independent