My Life in CIA: A Chronicle of 1973 - Softcover

Mathews, Harry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564783928 ISBN 13: 9781564783929

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 2015

Synopsis

Through a series of improbable coincidences, in the early 1970s Harry Mathews, then living in France, was commonly reputed to be a CIA agent. Even friends had their suspicions, which were only reinforced each time he tried to deny such a connection. With growing frustration at his inability to make anyone believe him, Mathews decided to act the part. 

My Life in CIA documents Mathews's experiences as a would-be spy during 1973, where amid charged world events—the coup in Chile, Watergate, the ending of the Vietnam War—he found himself engaged in a game that took sinister twists as various foreign agencies decided he was a presence that should be eliminated. 

Harry Mathews has turned these strange events into a spellbinding thriller where the line between fact and fiction gets relentlessly blurred.

About this title

About the Author

Born in New York in 1930, Harry Mathews settled in Europe in 1952 and has since then lived in Spain, Germany, Italy, and (chiefly) France. When Mathews published his first poems in 1956, he was associated with the so-called New York School of poets, with three of whom (John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler) he founded the review Locus Solus in 1961. Through his friendship with Georges Perec, he became a member of the Oulipo in 1972. The author of six novels and several collections of poetry, recent publications are THE NEW TOURISM (Sand Paper Press, 2010), Sainte Catherine, a novella written in French (Editions P.O.L, 2000), The Human Country: the Collected Short Stories (Dalkey Archive Press, 2002), The Case of the Persevering Maltese: Collected Essays (Dalkey Archive Press, 2003), OULIPO COMPENDIUM (co-edited with Alastair Brotchie; Atlas Press and Make Now Press, 2005), and My Life in CIA: A Chronicle of 1973 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2005).

Reviews

Leading a life of letters and leisure in Paris in the late 1960s and early '70s, Mathews (Cigarettes; The Human Country; etc.) wanted to "play a part in the grand conspiracy of poetic subversion," but people mistook him for "an ordinary, paid conspirator." Idle rumors grew a life of their own for this American ex-pat writer: people thought he was CIA, and when his denials fell on deaf ears, he decided to embrace the role, a story he embellishes in this staccato autobiographical novel peppered with literary, artistic and political references. Playing spy "seemed more promising than moping at home in front of my mirror wondering how fast I was losing my hair," the 41-year-old Mathews muses as he faces middle age in 1973. So he invents a fake travel agency for cover and bones up on the language of the spy trade with the help of his friend Patrick, who does corporate intelligence work. Mathews's shaggy dog tale turns risky when agents begin approaching him for real intelligence, "Patrick" turns out to be a false identity and Mathews goes on the run. Real people—his former and current wife, his agent—share page space with possibly fictitious events—a lecture Mathews gives to dyslexic travelers with departure anxiety—in this lively bit of novelistic truth telling and biographical embellishment.
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In this Walter Mitty-toned novella, a factual autobiographical substrate blends into fiction, but who can tell where? Suffice it to say that novelist Mathews, an American living in Paris circa 1973, can't convince his French artistic friends he is not a CIA agent, so he resolves to fake the part--it beats soaking up idle time by learning ancient Greek, he thinks. Knowing a spy needs cover, Mathews sets up as "international travel counsel," and the audience attending his seminar yields several recruiting prospects. "Patrick," also in the consultancy "business," develops into Mathews' boon companion to whom he confides his charade. A second prospect from that seminar (a Russian) becomes the plot's vehicle for eliding Mathews from a world of fantasy espionage into something more real, and menacing. Strangers contact him; he accepts a courier mission; Patrick vanishes; the Soviet embassy summons him, as does French counterintelligence, which warns Mathews a Stasi assassin is pursuing him. Evolving in mood from ludicrous to serious, the yarn's inventive literary elements elegantly mesh into a stylish amusement. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564783928
• ISBN 13: 9781564783929
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 203