My Life in CIA - (Harry Mathews) by Harry Mathews (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Through a series of improbable coincidences in the early 1970s, Harry Mathews was falsely rumored to be a CIA agent. Unable to make anyone believe him, he decided to act the part.

An unimpeachable classic of American literature, My Life in CIA was the last book published in Harry Mathews' lifetime: a maybe-autofictional, page-turning romp through 1970s Paris. At loose ends and struggling to publish his latest novel, our fictional Mathews gets hung up on three misunderstandings repeatedly made by his social set: that he's gay, that he's rich, and that he's a spy. He decides to lean into the spy rumor--until the situation spirals out of control.

In a charged year for global politics--the coup in Chile, Watergate, and the ending of the Vietnam War--Mathews finds himself entangled in a host of misadventures and precarious situations. He eventually catches the eye of the real CIA, which tries to recruit him, and receives warning of a plan for his assassination. Whether fact or fiction, My Life in CIA is a spellbinding thriller that cements Mathews' legacy as a generational storyteller.

About the Author

Harry Mathews was born in New York City in 1930 and spent his adult life in the United States and in France, where he co-founded the influential journal Locus Solus with John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler in 1961. He was the first American member of the literary consortium Oulipo, alongside Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, and Georges Perec. His many writings, spanning novels, short fiction, poems, essays, and translations from the French, include The Conversions, Tlooth, The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium, Cigarettes, The Journalist, My Life in CIA, and The Solitary Twin. Mathews was honored by the French government as an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters and earned awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Arts. He died in Key West, Florida, in 2017.

Daniel Levin Becker is the author of Many Subtle Channels and What's Good and the translator of books by, among others, Georges Perec, Laurent Mauvignier, Jakuta Alikavazovic, and Éric Chevillard. He has been a member of the Oulipo since 2009.