Leading Men
'A timeless and heart-breaking love story' Celeste Ng
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
Soon to be a film, written by Matthew Lopez (Olivier Award winner for The Inheritance), produced by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name)
'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
'A book to savour'
Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & The Six
'Extraordinary... I read Leading Men in one rapt afternoon'
Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies
'A novel of rare insight and beauty: Castellani is a writer of brilliant gifts'
Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
'Blazing... casts a spell right from the start'
Dwight Garner, New York Times
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.
'Seductive and steamy' Boston Globe
'Touching' Washington Post
'Dazzling' Entertainment Weekly
'Spectacular' Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Castellani's spectacular fourth novel (after 2013's All This Talk of Love) imagines the relationships between Tennessee Williams, his lover Frank Merlo, and a young actress named Anja Bloom, whom they take under their wing. In 1953 Italy, Tenn and Frank make the acquaintance of faltering writer Jack Burns, an alcoholic who's emotionally abusive to his doting lover, Sandro Nencini. Frank finds a foil in Sandro, who recognizes Frank's devotion and loneliness as Tenn writes, ignores him, and has brief dalliances with other men. While Tenn's also inspired by Frank to write plays and helps him pursue his dream of acting, Sandro's dedication goes largely unappreciated. Frank is beloved by Anja, a 17-year-old who flees her mother and finds fame with director Martin Hovland. The '50s scenes are interspersed with chapters set a decade later as Frank lays dying in a cancer ward, having been all but abandoned by Tenn, and a present-day period when Sandro's college-aged son Sandrino befriends Anja. Anja reveals that Tenn wrote an awful final play in which he didn't do Frank justice; she waffles as Sandro tries to convince her to produce it instead of destroying it. 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.
