SOURCE: Krist, Gary. “Me, Myself, and I.” New Republic 201, nos. 3–4 (17–24 July 1989): 40–41.

In the following review, Krist analyzes the relationship between character and theme in My Secret History.

My Secret History, an enormous book of over 500 pages, belongs to an increasingly familiar genre of American fiction—the novel by a rich and famous writer about the life and loves of a similarly rich and famous writer. Such books have apparently become required rites of passage for many of our major authors on the road to serious celebrity. But Paul Theroux, in his 18th book of fiction, has managed to avoid most of the pitfalls of the genre. My Secret History is neither a self-congratulatory account of the tribulations of success nor a study of the writer as victim of his demanding, bovine public. Rather, it's what autobiographical fiction ought to be: a writer's stratagem for getting at the larger...