The Book of Human Skin

Midday, May 13, 1784: An earthquake in Peru tears up the white streets of Arequipa. As the dust settles, a young girl arrives at the devastated convent of Santa Catalina. At the same moment, oceans away in Venice, an infant tears his way out of his mother’s womb. The great Palazzo Espagnol, built on Peruvian silver and New World drugs, has an heir by the name of Minguillo Fasan. Twelve years later, Venice is in Napoleon’s sights and Minguillo is listening to the birth-cries of his new sister, Marcella, a delicate, soft-skinned threat to his inheritance. Meanwhile, at Santa Catalina, the scarred young girl has become Sor Loreta, whose craving for sainthood is taking a decidedly sinister turn. Aided by a loyal servant, an irascible portrait-painter, a young doctor obsessed with skin, a warhorse of a Scottish merchant, and a cigar-smoking pornographer nun, Marcella pits her fierce heart against Minguillo’s pitiless machinations. Her journey takes her from Napoleon’s shamed Venice to the last picaresque days of colonial Peru—where the fanatical Sor Loreta has plans of her own for the young girl from Venice...