Recent History
-
- ¥950
-
- ¥950
発行者による作品情報
From the acclaimed short story writer – a brilliantly observed portrait of a man teetering on the edge of abandoning his marriage for a homosexual affair.
As a husband, Luca Carcera hides his emotions behind the safety of routine domesticity. With his spice jars and cookbooks stacked perfectly in the kitchen, he feels in some measure of control. He loves his wife, but is struggling to come to terms with the secret desires which lie beneath his role as a steady, suburban, middle-class husband. His parents, Lou and Dorothy, spent 14 years together before Lou abandoned his wife to set up home with a male friend and, perhaps unsurprisingly, young Luca grows up confused, not only about his own sexuality, but about the whole institution of marriage.
Luca may well love his wife, but what guarantee has he that he will not walk out on her 14 years into their marriage, having finally woken up to his latent homosexuality?
Acclaimed for his elegant stories on the flawed but necessary social bond that is marriage, Giardina once again proves himself an acutely sensitive writer – a brilliant observer of middle-class dreams, aspirations and compromises.
Reviews
from the early US reviews:
‘A graceful novel… Giardina manages to handle an enormous amount of emotional material with a light touch, and the long, looping arguments between Luca and those closest to him have the ring of truth. Giardina makes us care, in the end, what happens to our hero.’ New York Times
‘An emotionally piercing, quietly beautiful novel that perceptively examines one family’s struggles with the desire for social, sexual and economic success.’ Kirkus Reviews
‘A haunting novel about surviving in the wake of our parents’ choices… emotionally riveting, reminding us of the importance of accepting love in whatever form it presents itself.’ Entertainment Weekly
About the author
Anthony Giardina is the author of the short story collection The Country of Marriage, the novels Men With Debts and A Boy’s Pretensions, as well as a number of plays that have been produced in New York, Seattle, Yale and Washington. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, Esquire and GQ. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ticklish issues of sexual identity, class and intimacy wreak frightening confusion in the life of an Italian-American boy growing up in 1960s Massachusetts. In playwright and author Giardina's introspective, finely crafted first-person narrative, 11-year-old Luca Carcera finds his life upended by a series of baffling changes. A sensitive only child who is often frightened by the sounds of his parents' lovemaking, Luca adores his taciturn father, a man who "gave the effect of there being at least two of him, two things not fighting it out so much as living inside of him in some interesting kind of harmony." Luca's father is an accountant who builds his family a new housein a community envisioned as a step up the social ladder. But one year later, he abruptly abandons his wife and son, leaving Luca heartbroken and confused. Eventually, Luca learns that his father is living with another man. By age 13, Luca's relationship with a gay classmate clouds his understanding of his own sexuality. Through high school and college, Luca experiences feelings for girls and boys, but largely represses both. Twelve years later, he is happily married, but still stricken by what his father calls " lovely manly fear that sleeping with a man makes you something. Something irrevocable... if a man even once, and, God forbid, likes it... well, that's it, isn't it?" Now that fear threatens his marriage, and Luca must delve deeper into his personal history to find a saving peace. Giardina (The Country of Marriage; A Boy's Pretensions; Men with Debts) draws the reader into Luca's life with a candid, insightful narrative that probes important subtleties of identity and honesty, although the occasional withholding of information for dramatic effect seems too manipulative a technique for this otherwise frank exploration. 5-city author tour.
