Falling Palace: A Romance of Naples - Hardcover

Hofstadter, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1861974353 ISBN 13: 9781861974358

Publisher: Profile Books, 2006

Synopsis

A memorable portrait of the volcanic city from an American writer who has lost his heart to the place and to a mysterious Neapolitan woman. Weaving the intrigue of a romance with the haunting evocation of a legendary metropolis, Dan Hofstadter brilliantly reveals Naples to us. He is our guide to its decaying architectural beauty - the falling palace of his dreams - and the theatre of the city's everyday life; to the ancient festivals that regularly overtake the jumbled streets; the conversations in dialect that start in the cafes and continue into the night; the countless curio shops where treasures mingle with kitsch. And he brings to life on the page his Neapolitan friends, people whose gestures and superstitions seem as old as Vesuvius: chief among them, Benedetta, the object of his fascination and affections, and, like her home city, at once inviting and unfathomable. Hofstadter's Naples is an amalgam of equivocal beauty, betrayals and secrets, a wounded city whose commonplace wonders are superbly conjured by this rich and lyrical book.

About this title

Review:

The city prevails on every page ... literally breathtaking. (Shirley Hazzard New York Times)

Hypnotic and heartbreaking, Falling Palace had me shouting Napoli Saluto all over again. (Sunday Times)

Sensational ... a tale of pure, absorbing delightfulness. Like the literary love-child of Eco and Baedeker, he delights and informs in equal measure. (Sunday Telegraph)

Hypnotic and heartbreaking, Dan Hofstadter's Falling Palace, a memoir of a failed Neapolitan love affair, afforded the year's most tenderly wrought prose. (Christopher Bray New Statesman)

Synopsis:

Weaving the intrigue of a romance with the haunting evocation of a legendary metropolis, Dan Hofstadter brilliantly reveals Naples to us. He is our guide to its decaying architectural beauty - the falling palace of his dreams - and the theatre of the city's everyday life; to the ancient festivals that regularly overtake the jumbled streets; the conversations in dialect that start in the cafes and continue into the night; the countless curio shops where treasures mingle with kitsch. And he brings to life on the page his Neapolitan friends, people whose gestures and superstitions seem as old as Vesuvius: chief among them, Benedetta, the object of his fascination and affections, and, like her home city, at once inviting and unfathomable. Hofstadter's Naples is an amalgam of equivocal beauty, betrayals and secrets, a wounded city whose commonplace wonders are superbly conjured by this rich and lyrical book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1861974353
• ISBN 13: 9781861974358
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272