Two Murders in My Double Life

Book excerpt: 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 Josef Skvorecký's reputation as one of our most versatile, engaging, and compassionate writers. In 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 friendships 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.