SOURCE: Rubin, Martin. “Masquerading as Fiction.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (20 October 1996): 6.

In the following review of My Other Life, Rubin commends Theroux's skillful prose and lively characterizations, but finds shortcomings in his efforts to probe the psyche of his alter-ego.

This is a problematic book, a tricky book, an infuriating book. It is also frequently amusing and highly absorbing. In short, a lot of fun to read but hard to penetrate at a deeper level. And it is necessary to look beneath the surface, for My Other Life is obviously not designed solely to entertain, well though it does that. Just what is Paul Theroux up to this time?

He tells us this is a novel. Also, that it is an “imaginary memoir.” His publisher calls it an “autobiographical novel or fictional autobiography.” It reads as if it were straightforward autobiography: first-person narrative by a writer named...