The Paperchase

Marcel Theroux

I was intrigued by this story of a man searching into his recently deceased uncle's past by living in his house on the island of Ionia, reading his writings and almost becoming him. There were many hints and clues as to what might have occurred in the islanders' pasts but, whenever I thought I had it all worked out, there was always another twist in the plot.

Extract

And then a strange thing happened: the news of his death resurrected him in my imagination: the Patrick that was in me, the faint but indelible stamp of him that was me. Whole sections of my memory became active for the first time in years. It was like discovering a false bottom in a suitcase; or that my tiny flat in Clapham had grown an extra storey overnight. I thought about Patrick and his crazy old house on Ionia and, strangest of all I began to miss him - a man I had not clapped eyes on for almost twenty years.

Parallels