Introduction

(A big, lush novel from critically beloved Jenny McPhee, set against the exotic backdrop of postwar Italy.

Dante Sabato has always wanted to kill himself. He has also always wanted to sleep with women. A poet, translator, and writer of novels, Dante has long been in the best position to do both things. But even war could not end his dark obsessions, no matter the dire circumstances--prison, resistance, the role of assassin. A few scant years after losing all the people he has loved, he is a man of no moon--no pole pulls him, no object can hold his fancy. Then, one night, into his life step two American beauties: sisters Gladys and Prudence, ex-pat actresses on the prowl. One he desires, the other he demands, and a ménage blooms that threatens Dante's ability to end his own existence.

This is Jenny McPhee at her finest. Whether she is sketching the war-bruised Italian psyche as it brushes up against the puffed-up American dream of heroism, fantastically detailing the styles and locales of the late 1940s, or creating a sexual situation with spark, smoke, and fire, she is masterful in her prose, and her storytelling mesmerizes on every page.

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Excerpt

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.

–Oscar Wilde


I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

–W.B. Yeats



There is no hope, desire being spent.
Rest forever. So many
Palpitations. Your flutterings
Serve no one, nor do you dignify the earth
With your sighs. Life is bitter and empty,
Nothing more. The world is a slough.
Calm yourself now. Despair
For the last time. Fate gave your kind
No gift but death.
–Giacomo Leopardi















Prologue



At the risk of waking her, I ran my finger along the perfect little bumps of her spine, down into the small of her back, then up the gentle rise, until finally I sank it deep into the fissure between her supple, tender cheeks. I had traveled there earlier with my tongue and knew her heat, her smell, her geography. In my mind, I already had an intimate map of her drawn, all the dark, hidden places where I had strayed. She was lovely asleep, naked, quiet, her yellow hair tangled behind her ear, her thin lips slightly parted. She stirred and I removed my finger, replacing it with lire notes tightly rolled into the shape of a cigarette. ... view entire excerpt...

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