My Manservant and Me

Nightboat Books
Hervé Guibert, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, foreword by Shiv Kotecha
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A madcap tale of sadistic power-play by one of the 20th century’s most beloved French gay writers.

My Manservantand Me is a story about the trials and tribulations of having a live-in valet. Written from the uneasy perspective of an aging, incontinent author of extremely successful middlebrow plays, we learn about his manservant, a young film actor who is easily moved to both delicate gestures and terrible tantrums; who's been authorized to handle his master’s finances, who orders stock buys, dictates his master’s wardrobe, sleeps in his master's bed, and yet won’t let him watch variety television. My Manservantand Me reveals the rude specificities of this relationship with provocative humor and stylistic abjection. This manservant won't be going anywhere.

Contributor Bio

Hervé Guibert (1955–1991) was a French writer and photographer. A critic for Le Monde, he was the author of some thirty books, most notably To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, which presents an intimate portrait of Michel Foucault and played a significant role in changing public attitudes in France towards AIDS.

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