by Muriel Spark
First published 1981
Fleur Talbot is a struggling novelist who lands a job at the Autobiographical Association, where members are compiling their life stories. When her employer, the irascible Sir Quentin, gets his hands on Fleur's unpublished manuscript, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur. As Fleur's story comes to life around her, she must navigate the increasingly bizarre and hilarious consequences. In Muriel Spark's deft hands, this is a playful, razor-sharp exploration of the creative process and the nature of truth.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 1949-1950
172 pages · Paperback · Virago Press