Half a Life (novel) Half a Life (novel) Half a Life is a 2001 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul published by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel is set in India, Africa and Europe (London, Berlin and Portugal). "Half a Life" was long listed for the Man Booker prize (2001). Willie Somerset Chandran is the son of a Brahmin father and a Dalit mother. His father gave him his middle name as a homage to the English writer Somerset Maugham who had visited the father in the temple where the father was living under a vow of silence. Having come to despise his
A House Divided (Dallas) man so venal, so low, so mean, so diabolical that he has become an absolute delight to an estimated quarter of a billion viewers around the globe." His "New York Times" colleague John J. O'Connor described him as "the eldest son of the oil-rich Ewing family... [who is] a sadistic bully and a swindler" that "captured the public's imagination". Season 3 left the viewer with numerous people to suspect for the murder. Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray) is J.R.'s wife. J.R. had threatened to reinstitutionalize her for alcoholism. Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby) is J.R.'s ex-mistress and Sue Ellen's sister. J.R.