My Secret History
My Secret History is a novel by Paul Theroux published in June 1989 by Putnam Adult in the US and Hamish Hamilton in the UK.
The novel follows the life of Andre Parent as he "grows" through his life and the person he becomes through his experiences, experiences that have been said by some to be extremely autobiographical, but the author himself states in the book that only some of the events in the book are relevant to his own life, without telling us which bits these are.
Plot
Altar Boy 1956
The first chapter is set in the Boston suburb of Medford where 15-year-old Andy acts as altar boy at the local Catholic church. He frequently totes his.22 Mossberg rifle to church on his way to the Sandpits - an improvised shooting range complete with glass bottles - for the purpose of impressing his neighbor Tina Spector. He befriends a newly-arrived alcoholic Father Furty, whose easygoing and genial demeanor unburdens Andy in confessional and on boat trips with the Ladies of the Sodality in Father Furty's boat in Boston Harbor. Andy obtains a job attending the locker room at Wright's pond. Throughout the chapter, Andy reads through Dante's Inferno, and his opinion of the other characters is often a reflection of how they respond to this activity. Father Furty is quoted while on his boat saying, "I've seen plenty of bad, but I've never seen evil...Bad yes, evil no. And I'm from New Jersey!" He later repeats a shorter version of this to Andy and winks as Andy walks by. Father Furty's friendship and interest in Andy cultivates Andy's interest in the faith. After Father Furty's death, an interview with the Pastor, who largely viewed Father Furty as weak and in need of prayer for salvation, leads Andy to lose interest in the faith. At the end of the chapter, it's assumed that Andy and Tina have sex.Whale Steaks 1960
The chapter starts at the beginning of Summer after Andy's freshman year of college in Amherst. Andy finished Moby Dick at some point during the past year and is fixated with finding a whale steak to eat. Whilst reading Baudelaire, he negotiates for a job as a lifeguard at an Armenian Country Club - the Maldwyn Country Club - that he describes as exclusive and English, with an overbearing and ignorant Sicilian boss - Mattanza. He grows to dislike Mattanza's surveillance, the barring of reading at work, and the barring of talking with guests unless spoken to first. When he does interact with guests he finds they mostly talk about the powerful people they know. Mattanza reminisces with Andy about his former exploits with women across town, and makes a claim that women enjoy being roughed up. Andy discovers that Mattanza's wife will only have sexual relations with Mattanza when not pregnant, which is not often. While working at the country club, Andy receives attention from a rich fifty-year-old woman - Mrs. Mamalujian. Andy attempts to impress Mamalujian with his knowledge of books. After Mamalujian provides Andy The Henry Miller Reader as a gift, Mattanza confronts Andy about the gift and Andy is fired the next day. On the way out, Andy sabotages all the vehicles in the parking lot by placing potatoes from the kitchen into the tailpipes.The next day Andy applies for a job at the municipal pool - the MCD pool - where he works with two other lifeguards his age, Larry McGinnis and Vinny Muzzaroll. The new pool is lively and accepts a wide assortment of guests. Larry describes the pool to Andy by saying that at the end of every day he expects to find a body at the bottom. Andy receives better pay, shorter hours, and is allowed to read on the job. A girl named Lucy approaches him at the pool carrying On the Road and the two begin a mostly sexual relationship. Lucy is a 21 year-old Boston University student who rents a one bedroom space from a deaf landlady nearby. Andy begins reading Ezra Pound and many female authors during this period. Mamalujian starts to visit him at the pool, and takes him out to eat while he talks about his books. Mamalujian and Lucy do not know about each other. Mamalujian invites Andy to a restaurant in a hotel, but they enter a room and order meals and drinks. After showering and without becoming intimate, Mamalujian leaves and tells Andy the room is reserved for the night. Andy invites Lucy and the two spend the night together. Other gifts Mamalujian provides to Andy are used by Andy to impress Lucy. During one visit to a restaurant with Mamalujian, Andy enjoys his first whale steak. He has difficulty enjoying his steak because Mamalujian reveals that she's leaving her husband. Lucy reveals that she is pregnant, and becomes upset when she learns that Andy is only 19 years-old.
During a weekend trip to New York City with Mamalujian to see Broadway shows, Andy spends most of his time searching for an abortion doctor for Lucy. Andy sleeps with his clothes on in a separate bed. News of Kennedy's presidential campaign fills the airwaves and Andy describes Kennedy as a bad Catholic and a rich man that he dislikes. During the day, he searches bars and visits a doctor whose name Mamalujian mentions when he tells her that he's asking about abortion services for a friend. He is unable to find a doctor in New York. He accompanies Lucy on a visit to see her mother, to whom they do not mention the pregnancy. Lucy ridicules Andy as a child when he departs for the night and sleeps on the beach for lack of lodging. Andy resumes reading Boudelaire. Andy borrows $300 from Mamalujian and gives it to Lucy. Near Labor Day, the last day that the pool is open for the season, Mamalujian confronts Andy at the pool and brings him to a bar, telling Andy that he deceived her and that he can't leave her because of the $300 debt. Andy immediately leaves the bar and borrows money from Larry and Mattanza and donates blood nearby to reimburse Mamalujian within a half-hour. Andy visits with Lucy one last time before they both go back to college. Andy notices that Lucy is no longer pregnant, and she describes how she found a man to perform her abortion. Lucy met the man in a bar, who, after getting drunk, took her at dusk to a rundown shed. There, the man raped her and afterword used a metal tool from his bag to abort the unborn child. Lucy facetiously tells Andy he will be successful in his future endeavors. Andy dreams of escaping his failures.
African Girls 1964
The chapter opens at the isolated Chamba Hill Secondary School outside of Zimba at the beginning of a largely governmentless 6-month transition of power from the British Protectorate as Nyasaland in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to the independent country Malawi. Andy, now with the Peace Corps, is the headmaster of the school and must decide how to punish a student who is caught smoking marijuana out near the gum trees. Deputy Mambo, who caught the boy, and Miss Natwick, a white part-time needlework instructor from Rhodesia who believes she should be headmaster, both advocate for what Andy considers to be the British form of punishment - corporal punishment. The student mentions Andy's dancing with African girls, and to keep the student quiet and avoid doling out corporal punishment, Andy sentences the boy to make 20 clay bricks - the school needs a new chimbuzi - latrine. Mr. Likoni, the former British headmaster, departed after the December 31, 1963 dissolution of Nyasaland like many of the British in Nyasaland.We discover that Andy learned the local language Chinyanja at Syracuse University sometime before arriving in Africa. He enjoys conversing with the students and is well-liked in return. The students are well behaved and Andy fears the latrine will not be built. Before Andy became headmaster at the school, he built the road connecting the school to the lower road; after being told the Public Works Department was in stasis because of the government change, and with an allowance of 100 pounds, he first attempted hiring laborers, but they dozed off and asked for a higher rate on the first day. He exchanged his remaining amount of pounds for bags of tickeys, which he flung along the route of the road to the desired width. The students scavenged for the money and the road was created. Andy rides his bicycle through a pine forest planted by the Forestry Commission to travel between Zimpa and the school.
Andy describes his separate weekend life, where on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights he takes home a different African girl from the local bar - the Beautiful Bamboo Bar. After the British left, many of the shops in town are disused. The Nyasaland Trading Company sells British items Africans do not buy. The bar plays rock and roll music and the girls enjoy Andy's company. The girls never ask for money and Andy is pleased that the sex comes with no strings attached. Andy reveals that the girls are not considered suitable for marriage to Africans because they have shamed themselves in various ways. The girls live behind the bar, but are not paid to work there. Andy lives in Mr. Likoni's old residence and uses Mr. Likoni's previous cook - Captain, who is a Muslim and a former member of the King's African Rifles - as his own cook. Andy buys powder to kill body lice.
Ed Wently, a Peace Corps supervisor, arrives with a transfer from Sierra Leone, Ward Rockwell. Rockwell moves in with Andre and is tasked with teaching math and building the latrine for the school. Rockwell's frequent talk of and enthusiasm for hygiene and building the latrine annoys Andy, who considers Rockwell's most annoying characteristic as always being partly correct in his statements. Andy moves to a new two-room residence in a run down settlement of about 100 sheds called Kanjedza with Captain. Andy carries a stick for the dogs who only bark at whites. Andy discusses America with his new neighbor Harry Gombo, and when Harry claims that Americans have everything, Andy counters that Americans are starved for sex compared to Africans. Harry states that sex is like eating. Rockwell continues building his Alamo-inspired latrine. Andy continues having sex on weekends with girls from the bar and contracts gonorrhea.
Andy avoids the Peace Corps doctor and is instead prescribed free antibiotics from Mr. Nunka - a medical assistant - from the local hospital in Zimba. The infection leaves in a week and in return, Andy volunteers at the hospital for a few weekends to bathe several sick old men in the ward. Andy recognizes a bar girl, Gloria, who receives antibiotics at the hospital and begins exclusively seeing her for a period. He visits her village and during the visit is displeased with her behavior around her family. After returning, they go about their business as before.
Nearing the inauguration of Malawi, Deputy Mambo, who now sports a Youth League badge with an image of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, brings two Israeli soldiers to the school to drill the children for opening ceremonies. Deputy Mambo wants the students to sing "Everything Belongs" - a song describing how everything in the country belongs to Kamuzu Bundu. Andy asks Wently what to do and Wently tells Andy to play ball. Deputy Mambo is named the new headmaster and Mr. Likoni is the new Education Minister. Andy goes to the bar on inauguration day and the African girl he takes home asks him to pay for sex.