CARAVAGGIO

Name: CARAVAGGIO
Author: Christopher Peachment
ISBN: 0-312-31448-5

by Christopher Peachment ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

“You cannot trust a murderer to have a fancy prose style.” Well, you can here—in this wild tour of mid-millennium debauchery.

bookshelf

A frolicking and rampaging debut about a larger-than-life painter, courtesy of Britisher Peachment, a longtime writer on art, opera, and ballet.

“A brief ecstasy, a brief satisfaction of my itch,” Caravaggio says in a prologue, speaking of murder: “and then nothing more than the sadness that washes over you after coupling. And then the growing desire for more. There was drinking and brawling and whoring and sodomy.” And indeed, we are given the crude and bumptious story of a true life treated with great liberty. Michelangelo Merisi (later Caravaggio) never did get on with his parents (“For how can it be that two stupid people can give birth to a child more intelligent than they?”), so it’s a good thing he’s in Milan, where the most important things are fencing and sex with anything. At 18, he’s off for Venice, where the whores are the best in all of Europe and where he has a relationship with the philosopher Bruno, all the while receiving the best possible education in aesthetics. The picaresque moves next to Rome, the only place in the world for a painter, where there are many more young boys and girls to choose from. By now, Caravaggio is famous and working on ceilings (“It’s still there on the ceiling if you want to go see it”). Poor Bruno is burned at the stake, but no bother: Caravaggio simply blows his money on whores and gambling. The Vatican will be after his shorts before long, and Caravaggio is conceited enough to wind up in a duel, but we’ve already been told that murder is no big deal. Still—how does he find epitaphs to his chapters that come from two centuries after his death? Perhaps through immortality, which may be his most important legacy: “Cast a cold eye on it all, and on my work. I am still alive.”

“You cannot trust a murderer to have a fancy prose style.” Well, you can here—in this wild tour of mid-millennium debauchery.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-312-31448-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

bookshelf

Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.

Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

bookshelf

MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

bookshelf

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.