A Double Life — Frederic Raphael

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 confronts the betrayals and dislocations that have shaped and warped his life. At the heart of Guy's duplicity is the repression of his homosexuality during a time when the Vichy government controlled all in war-torn France. At an age when this young man was supposed to experience a sexual awakening, he instead went into hiding both physically and emotionally. This fictional memoir is elegantly crafted and told in a prose as cold and paradoxical as its narrator.