'Nothing on the shelf has quite prepared the reader for My Secret History . . . Parent saunters into the book aged fifteen, shouldering a .22 Mossberg rifle as earlier, more innocent American heroes used to tote a fishing pole. In his pocket is a paperback translation of Dante's Inferno . . . He is a creature of naked and unquenchable ego, greedy for sex, money, experience, another life' Jonathan Raban, Observer