My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past

A moving and intriguing book of invention and memory showcasing the genius of a Booker Prize-winning novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

My Nine Lives is a book filled with invented memories-of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and the life she may have or may have wished to live. Nine vignettes are linked to portray a rich life filled with searching, from London to Delhi, from Hollywood to New York. Each chapter gathers a different cast of characters, some new and some vaguely familiar, and the linked assembly is as exciting and illuminating as an artist's first show at a Soho gallery or a new play at the Studio Theater. "Sinewy with compressed emotion and intellectual energy, as well as the poignancy of a thwarted search for love" (Publishers Weekly), Jhabvala's late work further cements the award-winning writer and Academy award-winning screenwriter's acclaimed reputation. As lauded by Booklist, "Jhabvala name-drops Chekhov, and this is no pretension given the grace of her spiraling plots, the depth of her psychology, the elegance of her humor, the subtlety of her eroticism, and her masterfully concise descriptions of imperiled households, eccentric personalities, sexual enthrallment, unexpected alliances, and transcendent love."