'My name is Raphael Ignatius Phoenix and I am a
hundred years old - or will be in ten days' time, in the early hours of January
1st, 2000, when I kill myself.'
Raphael Ignatius Phoenix has had enough. Born at the
beginning of the 20th century, he is determined to take his own life as the old
millennium ends and the new one begins. But before he ends it all, he wants to
get his affairs in order and put the record straight, and that includes making
sense of his own long life - a life that spanned the century. He decides to
write it all down and, eschewing the more usual method of pen and paper, begins
to record his story on the walls of the isolated castle that is his final home.
Beginning with a fateful first adventure with Emily, the childhood friend who
would become his constant companion, Raphael remembers the multitude of
experiences, the myriad encounters and, of course, the ten murders he committed
along the way . . .
And so begins one man's wholly unorthodox account of the
twentieth century - or certainly his own riotous, often outrageous, somewhat
unreliable and undoubtedly singular interpretation of it.
This is going to be the longest suicide note in
history. A titanic epitaph. A monstrous obituary. A real rolling spouting blue-whale bloody
whopper of a confession. And since it's
going to end with The Pill, I might as well start that way too.
Small and
white and round, like a powdery tear, with no obvious defining features save a
slight nick in its otherwise perfect circumference, The Pill was made by
Emily's father, a pharmacist in turn-of-the-century London. It is not, admittedly, on the face of it, an
object to particularly capture the imagination. Certainly not one to start as extraordinary a story as I shall
forthwith be recounting. As with so
many things in my long and convoluted life, however, there is more to The Pill
as meets the eye. It is, you see,
despite its bland and unassuming exterior, absolutely deadly, its constituent
parts - one and a half grains of strychnine, one and half grains of arsenic,
half a grain of salt of hydrocyanic acid and half of a grain of crushed
ipecacuanha root - guaranteeing a swift, painless and permanent demise to any
who might happen to swallow them. Which
is exactly what I shall be doing in ten days' time, washed down with a glass of
fine, blood-red claret (a Latour '66 perhaps?
Or maybe a '70).
And so begins what is ironically both Paul Sussman's first
and last novel. He began writing The
Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix over 15 years ago, before the
publication of his very successful Egyptian police novels, of which there are
three. The completion of the novel was
made possible by Alicky Sussman, Paul's wife, who put together the pages of the
manuscript for publication following his untimely death from a brain haemorrhage
in May 2012. I have all of Paul's
previous novels, and totally adore them, particularly for their ability to
capture Egypt in all it's glory and we often chatted on Facebook about
this. I mourned his passing and also the
fact that there would be no more books.
When I heard that Doubleday was publishing this book, I jumped at the
chance to read and review it. I'm so
glad I did.
The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix is a
masterpiece. It is exactly what it says
it is, a suicide note, the life of a 99 year old man, who is planning on ending
his life on his 100th birthday with the help of The Pill. He writes down the history of his life,
including the ten murders that he has committed along the way, and of his childhood
friend Emily, who mysteriously appears whenever he needs her most.
I don't recall ever laughing out loud whilst reading a book
so much as with this one. I truly
chortled and snorted with laughter in every chapter. Paul Sussman has written a gem of a novel that is both terribly
moving, in that it is both a suicide letter and a final novel, but that is also
frighteningly funny. It is an
unbelievable account of an old man's life that deserves to be read and
treasured by everyone.
I absolutely loved it, and am so glad that Alicky put it
forward to be published. For that I
thank her.
 |
| In remembrance of Paul Sussman 1966-2012 |
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