In Josef Skvorecký's first novel written in English, the narrator lives in two worlds: the exile world of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, where old feuds, treacherous betrayals, and friships that have lasted through wars, occupations, and revolutions survive; and the fatuously self-congratulatory comfortable world of a Canadian university, in which grave attention is given to matters such as whether a certain male professor has left his office door open wide enough while interviewing a female student.
Murder suddenly intrudes upon both of these worlds. One features a young female sleuth, a college beauty queen, professional jealousies, and a neat conclusion. The other is a tragedy caused by evil social forces, in which a web of lies works insidiously to entangle Sidonia, who is a publisher of suppressed books and the narrator's wife.
A brilliantly stylish tour de force in which the bright, sarcastic comedy of one tale sharply contrasts with the dark, elegiac bitterness of the other, Two Murders in My Double Life confirms Skvorecký's reputation as one of our most versatile, engaging, and compassionate writers.
"Two Murders combines genres for which Škvorecký is well known: the thinly disguised autobiographical novel and the murder mystery . . . [He] has proved himself to be the preeminent Czech interpreter of the theme of home and exile, in his life and in his work."
The New York Times Book Review
"Potent and deeply affecting . . . building slowly . . . to a powerful conclusion."
The New York Times
"This novel . . . offers the reader both sides of an obscure and unsolvable story, the here and now inflected by the there and then, a complex bio-mystery about the Kafka-esque machinations of politics."
