Synopses & Reviews
"This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it."
He, the narrator, was a twenty-one-year-old art student traveling the world. She was a countess apparently cold, haughty, and inaccessible traveling with Haroun, her ambiguous companion. When the young man makes their acquaintance at a hotel in Sicily, he finds himself filled with unexpected lust and playing a part in something he doesn't quite understand. Filled with Theroux's typically effortless but devastating descriptions of people and places, The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro is a brilliant portrayal of aging and decay, a shocking tale of sensuality in a golden age. The thrill and risk of pursuit and desire mark the accompanying stories of the sexual awakening and rites of passage of a Boston boyhood, the ruin of a writer in Africa, and the bewitchment of a retiree in Hawaii. This is Paul Theroux at his most allusive and wise, writing with a deep understanding of the frailties of men and boys.
Review
"Supremely moving. A master class in detail and sensuous evocation." Financial Times
Review
"A decadent, engrossing collection. Whether evoking the bored sophistication of European aristocrats or the compulsive smuttiness of American teenagers, Theroux writes with an economy and grace which are hard to resist." Mail on Sunday
Review
"What is the reader to make of fiction that underscores men's dumb lust and women's emotional opacity, not to mention their fatal, black-widow power? Theroux's characters have our attention, but not our sympathy." Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro is a brilliant portrayal of aging and decay, a shocking tale of sensuality in a golden age....This is Paul Theroux at his most allusive and wise, writing with a deep understanding of the frailties of men and boys." The New Yorker
Review
"Theroux's characteristic haze of exoticism hangs over this uneven collection....[T]he quieter moments...are real gems of observation." Publishers Weekly
Review
"In this collection of stories, [Theroux] once again proves his adeptness at exploring otherness....What becomes clear here is that human desire is the true universal that ultimately transcends our separateness." Library Journal
Synopsis
From the best-selling author of Dark Star Safari and Hotel Honolulu, Paul Theroux's latest offers provocative tales of memory and desire. The sensual story of an unusual love affair leads the collection. The thrill and risk of pursuit and conquest mark the accompanying stories, which tell of the sexual awakening and rites of passage of a Boston boyhood, the ruin of a writer in Africa, and the bewitchment of a retiree in Hawaii. Filled with Theroux's typically exquisite yet devastating descriptions of people and places, The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro evokes "the complexities of matters of the heart with subtlety and grace" (People).
About the Author
PAUL THEROUX's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.
Table of Contents
Contents The Stranger at the Palazzo dOro 1 A Judas Memoir I. Holy Week 111 II. Pup Tent 136 III. Seeing Truman 154 IV. Scouting for Boys 163 An African Story 225 Disheveled Nymphs 265