A Double Life

Product Information

Orthofer, The Complete Review A Double Life has plenty to say about how the marriage market deprived young noblewomen of outward agency and constrained their inner lives.

Thank you to both Penguin Publishing Group - Viking, NetGalley and Edelweiss and Flynn Berry for an ARC to read and review. Loosely based on the Lord Lucan case, A Double Life follows Claire, whose father murdered her nanny, beat her mother, and vanished without a trace when she was a child. Her protagonists seethe over their knowledge of violence and are fueled by a howling grief for its victims. I was a big fan of Flynn Berry’s “Under the Harrow,” so I was delighted to score an ARC of her newest book, “A Double Life.This kind of reminded me of something like The Secret History or Social Creature or The Riot Club, but instead of telling the story from an insular perspective that indulges in the fantasy of living that kind of possibly elite life, it's like if The Secret History had been narrated by Richard's mother, or someone else who was close enough to touch that lifestyle without actually living it.

The first volume of The Double Life… stretched from Dylan’s youth – famously fictionalised by the artist himself, with those months in the carnival – to the transformative 1966 motorcycle crash. Drawn from the personal experiences of its author, it's a glittering love letter to the Great White Way — and all the crazy, gifted people who keep it humming.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Though Claire has managed to create a successful life with a high-end profession, she's never given up wanting him to face justice and either prove his innocence. As a journalist, my work varies from undercover investigations to celebrity interviews - but what really interests me is seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Once banished from the literary canon, this new release of her only novel includes both her prose and poetry that offer astute observations of Russian society.

Her brother is also affected by his father's supposed actions and turns to a life of drugs and rehab.

Although the book was interesting and well written, I had no gasps, no sharp intakes of breath, no amped-up pulse until late in the story when all was wrapped up. I flew through these pages in just a day due to the pacy writing style and the 'passing of the baton' between Gabriella and Isobel for who had the narrative on a chapter. He wrote a reasonably serious acceptance speech, which he delivered in Sweden the following year, taking care to point out that his words were intended to be sung, not read, like Shakespeare was meant to be acted. This novel, therefore, should be read and reread not as a novelty or a token—a woman’s work in a still overwhelmingly male canon—but as a daring and sophisticated work of nineteenth century Russian prose. The young Benson is catapulted 30 years into the future and his “father” is an older version of himself: a successful comic book illustrator whose work has been turned into movies, and who is now teaching at a nearby college.The Double Life of Benson Yu is a book lobbed in half — and those who are already committed to reading this upon the book’s release in April 2023 may want to skip this paragraph for this is one of those reads where the less you know, the more effective the story will be.