Based on a True Story
by Delphine de Vigan
Bloomsbury

The character Delphine in the story is a writer who is riding the wave of success generated by her first book. French author Delphine de Vigan also happens to have gained world-wide acclaim with her books No and Me and Richard & Judy. So it is not a huge stretch to believe that Delphine de Vigan’s latest book is really based on a true story. The other main character in the story also writes books, but as a ghost writer for famous women’s autobiographies, L gets none of the credit.

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The story is Delphine’s account of how she met, became incredibly close to and was somehow burnt by her association with the mysterious L (no further details are given as to her name). It is a three act story divided into: seduction, depression and betrayal. But that’s not all as the narrative continually questions the division between fact and fiction. The reader has to search for the ‘truth’ right up until the end of this suspenseful anecdote which is, according to the author, based on a true story.

Suffering from writers’ block after a whirlwind of speaking engagements, Delphine suffers some setbacks. Her children leave home, her partner is absent, there is a continual stream of anonymous letters attacking her and her writing, she is attacked on Facebook and she loses her notebooks that have accumulated years of scribbled ideas. It is during this time that L becomes her closest friend and confidant.

Delphine has always envied L her grace, assurance and femininity but she also detected something barely perceptible that suggested L had come from a dark place and “undergone a phenomenal transformation”. There are alarm bells in her relationship with L but Delphine ignores them as she has become more and more reliant on L. The depth of L’s deception does not become apparent until after the spellbinding tale is told.

Lezly Herbert