A humane and humorous tale that follows Verdi’s musical development.
A debut biographical novel tells the story of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.
Growing up the son of tavern keepers in the village of Le Roncole in the Duchy of Parma, young Giuseppe is known as “Carlo’s Old Man” for his solemn demeanor. (Carlo is his father.) Displaying an early gift for musical composition, Giuseppe plays the organ at the local church, though his creativity is not always encouraged. The aspirational Carlo connects his young son with Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy local patron, whose daughter, Margherita, becomes the object of Giuseppe’s affection. Barezzi arranges for Giuseppe’s musical education in Milan, which leads to composition work and, eventually, to operas. As Giuseppe’s star begins to rise in the world of music, his homeland starts to bubble with a somewhat fantastic notion: an independent, unified Kingdom of Italy. Giuseppe’s work becomes associated with the movement, though the contrarian composer isn’t thrilled by it: “He struggled with his growing association with Italian unification and he made an effort to absolve himself of this label by dedicating the music to” Austrian Duchess Marie Louise of Parma “at a performance.” Even so, Giuseppe’s destiny is linked to that of his homeland: He will become one of his country’s most beloved men as well as one of the most celebrated opera composers in history. Writing in a precise, detailed prose, Mitchell brings warmth and wit to Verdi’s story. (When his mentor says, at one point, “I have some good news right here,” Verdi quips in response, “The Austrians have put a moratorium on practicing fugues?”) Whereas other volumes of the Mentoris Project (“a series of novels and biographies about the lives of great Italians and Italian-Americans”) have felt rather wooden, Mitchell has managed to enliven the life of Verdi by fleshing out the characters and truly dramatizing the events. Similarly, the author celebrates his subject’s flaws in a way that keeps the book from reading like a hagiography. Though it does not rise quite to the level of literary fiction, this novel is an enjoyable and highly informative portrait of Verdi that should please opera fans and foes alike.
A humane and humorous tale that follows Verdi’s musical development.Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947431-11-9
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Barbera Foundation
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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