Leading Men: 'A timeless and heart-breaking love story' Celeste Ng - Softcover

Castellani, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474613543 ISBN 13: 9781474613545

Publisher: W&N, 2019

Synopsis

'Movie stars in Italy, a longtime affair, and a missing Tennessee Williams play - what more could you want?' Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

'Lyrical, restrained, and affecting. This is a book to savour' Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & The Six

PORTOFINO, ITALY. JULY 1953
At a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote, literary sensation Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet the enigmatic Anja Blomgren, an aspiring Swedish actress.

Their encounter will alter the course of their lives forever.

Spanning half a century and featuring a dazzling cast of characters - from Anna Magnani cooking pasta amatriciana in a sun-kissed kitchen in Rome, to Ludovico Visconti barking orders on his latest film set - Leading Men is a heart-breaking novel about life in the shadows of greatness, and a moving re-telling of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.

'Extraordinary... I read Leading Men in one rapt afternoon, and spent hours afterwards just stunned from having been immersed in such a tender, psychologically devastating, and gorgeously precise novel' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

'Blazing... casts a spell right from the start. To hold it in your hands is like holding a front-row opera ticket' Dwight Garner, New York Times

'I know of few books that give such a moving account of the indispensable value of genius and its intolerable human cost. This is a novel of rare insight and beauty, and Castellani is a writer of brilliant gifts' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You

'Seductive and steamy' Boston Globe
'Touching' Washington Post
'Dazzling' Entertainment Weekly
'Spectacular' Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

About this title

Review:

Movie stars in Italy, a longtime affair, and a missing Tennessee Williams play - what more could you want? Christopher Castellani's lush newest novel recreates the glamour of the 1950s while deftly portraying a timeless and heartbreaking love story. (Celeste Ng, bestselling author of LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE)

Lyrical, restrained, and affecting. This is a book to savour. (Taylor Jenkins Reid, bestselling author of DAISY JONES & THE SIX)

Blazing... Casts a spell right from the start... Vividly reimagines the relationship between Williams and Frank Merlo, and offers intricate thoughts about the nature of fidelity, the artistic impulse, and estrangement . . . [Castellani's] scenes glitter . . . This book is a kind of poem in praise of pleasure. Its author knows a great deal about life; better, he knows how to express what he knows. But this is an alert, serious, sweeping novel. To hold it in your hands is like holding, to crib a line from Castellani, a front-row opera ticket. (Dwight Garner, New York Times (Book of the Times))

A seductive, steamy novel of Tennessee Williams and his lover... Castellani's quiet portrayal of Merlo has a deep, aching appeal... [His] prose has a beguiling lilt and color, whether he's evoking his characters' evasive or erratic emotions, or conjuring the far-flung locales where these globe-hoppers touch down. (Boston Globe)

Touching... Castellani knows his people... and he knows this world. (Washington Post)

Dazzling... [Castellani writes] with an evocative precision that historical fiction often merely aspires to. (Entertainment Weekly)

'Audacious...[Castellani's] novel not only exults in the historical synchronicities and proximities he has discovered but catches the reader up in its rapture. (New York Times Book Review)

Spectacular... Castellani's novel hits the trifecta of being moving, beautifully written, and a bona fide page-turner. This is a wonderful examination of artists and the people who love them and change their work in large and imperceptible ways. (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

I read Christopher Castellani's Leading Men in one quiet, sunny, rapt afternoon, and spent hours afterwards just stunned from having been immersed in such a tender, psychologically devastating, and gorgeously precise novel. An extraordinary book. (Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies and Florida)

With extraordinary artistry and grace, Christopher Castellani interweaves history and invention to show us both the depths great artists are driven to and the love that draws them back. I know of few books that give such a moving account of the indispensable value of genius and its intolerable human cost. This is a novel of rare insight and beauty, and Castellani is a writer of brilliant gifts. (Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You)

Book Description:

A dazzling and devastating reimagining of Tennessee Williams's love affair with his longtime companion Frank Merlo.

About this edition

• Publisher: W&N
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1474613543
• ISBN 13: 9781474613545
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368