Staff Pick
How to describe Beautiful Ruins? It's such an odd yet enchanting book. The characters are a quirky mix of the commonplace and the extraordinary: a befuddled innkeeper from a tiny Italian town, a haunted ex-military wannabe novelist, a beautiful but sick young starlet, a hideously nipped-and-tucked aging movie producer, a stranded, strung-out musician, a screenwriter pitching a movie on the Donner Party, and Richard Burton. What? Yes, Richard Burton. It all seems eccentric and decidedly bizarre, yet Beautiful Ruins is a thoroughly lovely book. Witnessing the craftsmanship with which Walter braids these characters' story threads together is beautiful indeed. Funny, sweet, heart-wrenching, and profound, Beautiful Ruins has all of your literary touch points covered. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the moment it opens—on a rocky patch of Italian coastline, circa 1962, when a daydreaming young innkeeper looks out over the water and spies a mysterious woman approaching him on a boat—Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, Beautiful Ruins is gloriously inventive and constantly surprising—a story of flawed yet fascinating people navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.
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“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.” Richard Russo, author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls
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“A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor. . . . reimagines history in a package so appealing wed be idiots not to buy it.” Library Journal (starred review)
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“Well-constructed…quirky and entertaining tale of greed, treachery, and love.” < b=""> < i=""> Publishers Weekly <> <>
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“This is a blockbuster, with romance, majesty, comedy, smarts, and a cast of thousands. Theres lights, theres camera, theres action. If you want anything more from a novel than Jess Walter gives you in Beautiful Ruins, youre getting thrown out of the theater.” < b=""> Daniel Handler, author of < i=""> Why We Broke Up <> and creator of Lemony Snicket <>
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“[N]othing less than brilliant, a tour de force that crosses decades, continents, and genres, to powerful and often hilarious effect....A masterful novel of love, loss, and hard-won hope that satisfies on every level.” < b=""> Ben Fountain, author of < i=""> Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk <> <>
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“Within a page-turner of a plot, these triumphantly vulnerable characters leap off the page to take up permanent residence in your inner life. The effect is so powerful that to be untouched by Beautiful Ruins might well be like having no inner life at all.” < b=""> Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of < i=""> 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction <> <>
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“A brilliant, madcap meditation on fate. . . . Walters prose is a joy-funny, brash, witty and rich with ironic twists. Hes taken all of the tricks of the postmodern novel and scoured out the cynicism, making for a novel thats life-affirming but never saccharine.” < b=""> < i=""> Kirkus Reviews <> (starred review) <>
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“A marvel, an absolute gem of a beach read that is both hilarious and heartbreaking.” < b=""> Huffington Post <>
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“Walter vividly draws a world both tender and cutthroat, where ambition battles reality, daydreams fight doldrums and sometimes win.” < b=""> < i=""> Interview <> <>
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“Lyrical, heartbreaking, and funny . . . Walter closes the deal with such command that you begin to wonder why up till now hes not often been mentioned as one of the best novelists around. Beautiful Ruins might just correct that oversight.” < b=""> < i=""> Kansas City Star <> <>
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“A monument to crazy love . . . Walter [is] a believer in capricious destiny with a fine, freewheeling sense of humor.” < b=""> < i=""> New York Times <> <>
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“Expertly scratches the seasonal itch for both literary depth and dazzle.” < b=""> < i=""> Entertainment Weekly <> <>
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“A novel with pathos, piercing wit and, most important, the generous soul of a literary classic. . . . Walter has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors.” Boston Globe
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“Beautiful . . . A shining, imaginative tale . . . Beautiful Ruins shows novelists how it is done.” < b=""> < i=""> The Plain Dealer <> <>
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“A literary miracle.” Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
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“His [Walters] characters are long-suffering, prone to failure and sometimes at deaths door. But the verve and enthusiasm of this novel, from its lets-go-everywhere structure to the comedy in the marrow of its sentences, are wholly life-affirming.” < b=""> < i=""> Minneapolis Star Tribune <> <>
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“Entrancing…Walters turns of phrase are as brilliant as his plot twists, making for a compelling, fun read.” < i=""> < b=""> People <> <>
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“Beautiful Ruins is satisfying and delicate, a spectacular story of love, frustration, selfish intent, and the patience of the human heart.” < b=""> < i=""> The Stranger <> <>
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“[A] high-wire feat of bravura storytelling. . . . [Walters] mixture of pathos and comedy stirs the heart and amuses as it also rescues us from the all too human pain that is the motor of this complex and ever-evolving novel.” < b=""> < i=""> New York Times Book Review <> <>
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“A beautiful narrative . . . This writer is a genius of the modern American moment.” < b=""> < i=""> Philadelphia Inquirer <> <>
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“His masterpiece . . . an interlocking, continent-hopping, decade-spanning novel with heart and pathos to burn, all big dreams, lost loves, deep longings and damn near perfect.” < b=""> Salon <>
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“Walter is a very, very funny writer and can do Hollywood satire with the best of them. But this is also a novel with a live, beating heart, full of sympathy for its characters and agut wisdom…Youll want to explore these Ruins.” < b=""> < i=""> Newsday <> <>
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“It is a powerful and lush book.” < b=""> Selma Blair, the <> New York Post <> <>
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“A great getaway of a novel.” < b=""> < i=""> People <> <>
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“Beautiful Runs is itself a showcase for Walters outrageous literary gifts in virtually every genre and style. . .No wonder critics have been outdoing each other with superlatives. . .” < b=""> Nashville Scene <>
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“[An] enchanting novel. . . Sweeping effortlessly back and forth between Italy and current-day Hollywood, and between various modes of storytelling, Walters builds a world that wont soon let you go.” < b=""> Paula McLain, author of < i=""> The Paris Wife <> <>
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“Combines satisfying, old-fashioned storytelling with a modern sensibility.” < b=""> Becky Aikman <>
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“A literary miracle.” Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
About the Author
Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including the bestsellers Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets, the National Book Award finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, the winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, McSweeney's, and Playboy, as well as The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.