Charged with comic energy and a steely disregard for any pieties whatsoever， Barney s Version is a major Richler novel， the most personal and feeling book of a long and distinguished career.Told in the first person， it gives us the life (and what a life!) of Barney Panofsky--whose trashy TV company， Totally Useless Productions， has made him a small fortune; whose three wives include a martyred feminist icon， a quintessential JCP (Jewish-Canadian Princess)， and the incomparable Miriam， the perfect wife， lover， and mother--alas， now married to another man; who recalls with nostalgia and pain his young manhood in the Paris of the early fifties， and his lifelong passion for wine， women， and the Montreal Canadiens; who either did or didn t murder his best friend， Boogie， after discovering him in bed with The Second Mrs. Panofsky; whose satirical eye for the idiocies of today s Quebec separatists (as well as for every other kind of political correctness) manages to offend his entire acquaintanceship (and will soon be offending readers everywhere); and whose memory--though not his bile--is， in his sixty-seventh year， definitely slipping . . .