UNFINISHED FUNERAL

by Niccolo Tucci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 1964

Those who liked (we did, more than most) the bouffant portrait of the autocratic, aristocratic Mamachen who overwhelmed Before My Time (1962) will find that this is something of an encore. But, like a passe primadonna, playing to an empty theatre, the Countess has none of the dazzling authority of the earlier characterization. Still, on a slighter scale, is a formidable figure of a woman who early in life, to assure the attentions and affections of her husband, made a career of being the ""dying Duchess of Gerona"" (Spain) and staged her funerals from her sickbed. Thus after 36 (unnecessary) operations and an infinity of heart attacks (at will) she would summon the hearse, the four black horses and the priest. While the Count was lucky enough to escape by dying, not so her son and daughter whose marriages she prevented and whose liberation is now attempted by her first lover.... Most of the book, however, is not much more than an elaborate mise en scene for a caprice or perhaps a notion which, for all its occasional comedy and incidental irony, is not really a novel.

Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1964

Categories: FICTION