Aracoeli. This item is unavailable.Aracoeli

An aging Italian man discovers a terrible secret from his mother's past and is prompted to scrutinize his own childhood and later life as a homosexual

"...Aracoeli certainly deserves to be recognized as a great work of existential literature, alongside Rainer Maria Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurid's Brigge. ... Morante writes gorgeously of the disintegration and destruction of the body and mind. Although the path she takes is dark, the unraveling is ecstatic."―Kate Zambreno, Believer

"The bond between a mother and son is like no other. "Aracoeli" is the story of Manuel, a man who seems to have nothing to live for. In his mid-life crisis, he returns to his mother's hometown to try to piece together her life to gain some semblance of closure about a bond that was lost. Hoping to get his own life back on track by understanding his mother's, "Aracoeli" is deftly translated from the original Italian by William Weaver, an excellent read for those seeking world fiction."―The Midwest Book Review

"A Storyteller who spellbinds."―New Yorker Review of Books

"There is a peculiar Dostoyevskian visionary quality in Morante's writing that occasionally illuminates her somber Naturalistic landscape. At a number of crucial junctures she manages to carry out wonderful forays into the uncanny, moving from bleak earthbound things to metaphysical vistas."―New York Times

"A marvel of a novel. . . . All the pleasures that fiction can offer."―Saturday Review

"Stately, baleful, agonized, and powerfully single-voiced."―Kirkus Review