The Scapegoat
Published by Little, Brown and Company
In “a dazzlingly clever and immensely entertaining novel,” an Englishman switches lives with his doppelganger, a French count with a dysfunctional family (New York Times).
By chance, John and Jean—one English, the other French—meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking —until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It’s to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman’s shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.
Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.
“What a magnificent thriller this is.” —The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Daphne Du Maurier:
“No other popular writer has so triumphantly defied classification . . . She satisfied all the questionable criteria of popular fiction, and yet satisfied the exacting requirements of “real literature,” something very few novelists ever do.” -Margaret Forster, author of Daphne Du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller
“She wrote exciting plots, she was highly skilled at arousing suspense, and she was, too, a writer of fearless originality” —The Guardian
By chance, John and Jean—one English, the other French—meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking —until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It’s to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman’s shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.
Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.
“What a magnificent thriller this is.” —The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Daphne Du Maurier:
“No other popular writer has so triumphantly defied classification . . . She satisfied all the questionable criteria of popular fiction, and yet satisfied the exacting requirements of “real literature,” something very few novelists ever do.” -Margaret Forster, author of Daphne Du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller
“She wrote exciting plots, she was highly skilled at arousing suspense, and she was, too, a writer of fearless originality” —The Guardian
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