Synopses & Reviews
In this mesmerizing novel, the acclaimed author of THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES and the LIVES OF THE MAYFAIR WITCHES makes real for us the exquisite and otherworldly society of the eighteenth-century castrati, the delicate and alluring male sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices brought them the adulation of the royal courts and grand opera houses of Europe, men who lived as idols, concealing their pain as they were adored as angels, yet shunned as half-men.
As we are drawn into their dark and luminous story, as the crowds of Venetians, Neopolitans, and Romans, noblemen and peasants, musicians, prelates, princes, saints, and intriguers swirl around them, Anne Rice brings us into the sweep of eighteenth-century Italian life, into the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius. It is a novel that only Anne Rice could have written, taking us into a heartbreaking and enchanting moment in history, a time of great ambition and great suffering--a tale that challenges our deepest images of the masculine and the feminine.
"To read Anne Rice is to become giddy as if spinning through the mind of time."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Dazzling in its darkness...Spellbinding."
--The New York Times
Synopsis
In a sweeping saga of music and vengeance, the acclaimed author of The Vampire Chronicles draws readers into eighteenth-century Italy, bringing to life the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius. This is the story of the castrati, the exquisite and otherworldly sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices win the adulation of royal courts and grand opera houses throughout Europe. These men are revered as idols--and, at the same time, scorned for all they are not.
Praise for Anne Rice and Cry to Heaven "Daring and imaginative . . . Anne] Rice seems like nothing less than a magician: It is a pure and uncanny talent that can give a voice to monsters and angels both."
--The New York Times Book Review "To read Anne Rice is to become giddy as if spinnning through the mind of time."--San Francisco Chronicle
"If you surrender and go with her . . . you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream."--The Boston Globe
"Rice is eerily good at making the impossible seem self-evident."--Time
From the Trade Paperback edition.