So good! About a young actor, Edward Day, in the 1970s and his doppelganger who saves him from drowning, then ends up inextricably intertwined in his life. Two of the more seminal scenes take place around productions of Sweet Bird of Youth and Uncle Vanya. The ending was a little rushed, but forgivable. ( )

The 'confessions' are a pseudo-memoir, by an author exploring acting from from the outside. All the more impressive, then, that actors and critics have treated the book with respect. It has been widely reviewed, attracting some eminent commentary, particularly in relation to its setting – 1970s Broadway – and insights into the acting profession.

As usual, Valerie Martin walks around her topic to observe all sides, and isn’t scared of big themes. This time it is life and death, the double, the Self and Other, the limits of what we can know. Above all, though, it studies the impact of a persecutor in your life.

Edward was one of four boys to a mother who had longed for a daughter. He was the most girlish of them and closest to his mother, but she abandoned her family for a lesbian relationship. Edward’s first night of sex with a girl coincides with his mother’s suicide. It leaves him with a wish to be other than he is. He declares that his acting isn't about narcissism or even self-expression, but rather the chance to be someone else.

A talented fellow actor later tells him: "I get myself from what I see you getting about me." But that is different to seeing oneself only through a persona - through an outer shell seen by others, like politicians crafting themselves around their images. That "is not, perhaps, a bad way to start", Edward tells us, but you truly find yourself as an actor when you discover and draw out your inner self, and subordinate it to your purposes.

Such subtlety distinguishes Edward from fellow actor Guy Margate. Guy sees himself only through a persona, even in moments of crisis. He is unaware, for example, of how his jealous gaze at Edward could be applied by him on stage. Guy has a gift for mimicry, but mimics, we're told, are rarely good actors.

The story turns around Guy and Edward. They are both aspiring actors, very similar looking, chasing the same parts. In one scene they actually stare at each other’s reflections in the mirror. They pursue the same woman, fellow thespian Madeleine. This 'double' stuff is so blatant that we are being invited, I think, to look beyond it.

Early on in the novel the reader first encounters Guy in the act of saving Edward’s life. One night Edward swims out from a beach near the holiday house where he has been partying with other young actors (and seducing one of them), but gets caught a riptide. Guy swims out and pulls him free, but from then on Guy is toxic for Edward. Like Edward’s mother, Guy follows the gift of life with small but ongoing doses of death.

Guy sets Edward up, puts him in a bad light whereever possible, overpowers him in any social situation he can. He finds and plays on weak spots, sends varied signals of menace. He tries to disorient Edward through moments of phony friendship.

The biggest problem for Edward is Guy’s parasitic hunger for his life. His hard-won bits of money will do for a start. Then there is the issue of Edward’s latent theatrical talent. Perhaps Guy senses that whatever his own short terms successes he is hollow as an actor and person. The "dead gazing upon the living", he fastens on Edward: he will never just drift away.

Perhaps it amused a female writer to study rivalry between men.

Above all, it is a fight over the fellow young thespian Madeleine. Within this triangle another theme of the book plays out: the limits of what we can know of the world and one another. We see only through Edward’s eyes, so a lot of their interplay is hidden. But Guy's cold commentary on Edward shows that our enemies have insights about us, knowledge we ourselves lack or won’t look at.

In these memoirs Edward does not give Madeleine’s personality the same attention as Guy's; indeed, once he has her for himself his interest in her declines, until Guy makes another move on her, and the story darkens.

Madeleine's vagueness contrasts with the dazzling power of Marlene Webern, as she blazes briefly through Edward’s career. An older, accomplished performer, Marlene sees deeply into Edward and shocks him to life as an actor. He lusts for her yet she is really the Good Mother he's missed, and whom Guy will never have.

At one curious moment early in the book, when Guy and Edward walk away from the nocturnal beach rescue, Guy insists that they already know each other. Perhaps so: his animosity to Edward is already fully formed. In that case Edward as autobiographer has left many blanks, and has let this anecdote slip through a calculatedly false account of their relations. Some reviewers have taken this approach and one interpreted Edward himself as a monster. But I think it would be more in keeping with the story to understand Guy’s assertion as the first of many ploys to knock his enemy off balance. In that case his hatred of Edward had ignited only hours before, during a the party in which Edward was busy with Madeleine, still blessedly unaware of Guy’s existence. ( )

I found myself somewhat perplexed, though highly entertained, by this book. It's the story of an actor in the 1970s, his career on the stage and his friendships within the theater community, as well as a deeply antagonistic relationship with a disturbed doppelganger who saves him from drowning early on. While the tension of the relationship between Edward and Guy, a kind of manifestation of his baser self, is what drives the plot of the novel, much has been made among reviewers of the way in which Martin creates effectively the world of 1970s NYC theater. Yes, she does that, but I was hoping for a little more discussion of technique, rehearsal, the actual feeling of being onstage, than is here. Martin is more interested in the ways in which being an actor both causes and results from a deep, unrelenting narcissism, and how that manifests itself in perpetually self-obsessed behavior in one's personal life. There's nothing wrong with this as a project, but I suppose I was somewhat disappointed not to get more time with Edward on the stage than in a bar.

Regardless, the plot of this subtle, taught novel is compelling until the final page, and it's a highly enjoyable, thought-provoking read. ( )

She is awesome! ( )

An interesting character study and a glimpse into the not-so-glamorous world of the working theater actor. I appreciate the intelligence of Martin's prose and would also recommend her earlier novel, Trespass. ( )