"Desideria" is mesmerizing from the first page and once you get into its flow, a page turner to boot. It takes place in an unnamed provincial European city cca 18th century with a mixture of French and English names which is under the power of the rich "Governor" while the "Specialist" is sort of an underground boss that becomes the de-facto patron of smaller run-down theater Minerva.
This we figure out as the book progresses since the novel starts with a striking scene in which a girl looks into a mirror, throws a lamp in the small room and then when the building gets on fire jumps from a window to be later found unconscious and led to the city madhouse.
"She swallows once and blinks caught light away.
Then hauls the lamp back, torquing at the waist, and hurls it at the mirror, all her strength behind the throw.
It shatters, they shatter, glass into glass, and the fire out onto the table, up into the air. Hard sparks of lamp, mirror, and flame fly winking out like fireflies. She stands there as the fire scales the walls, as the fire's scaled the walls, as the fire finds no higher purchase, dashes itself against the ceiling, hurtles raining down.
Beneath the fall of fire, her eyes still and sharpen off .
For the first time, they're aware."
If these lines hook you as they hooked me, get the novel as soon as possible since it keeps this superb lyrical prose to the end, though there is lots of action and intrigue to come later.
"Desideria" has a very intriguing premise: an actress who truly believes she is the character she plays - all actors have to believe that to some extent but for Ange it is *real* until she is led away from the props - and the execution alternating with surreal madhouse scenes that are as good as any such I've read is just perfect.
There are two story lines: Annie/Ange in the madhouse and Ange St.Loup in the Minerva intertwine and later conflict so the question of what is "real" and what is imagined becomes more and more important as the book goes on.
Split into named chapters alternating between the "present" when Ange has been taken to the madhouse and the past detailing her life as an actress in the theater, the novel features a lot of great characters, both in the theater troupe and in the asylum.
All the actors, including the manager and his wife, the screen writers, the thief turned actor by necessity have very interesting detailed life stories, though as the novel progresses we are starting to wonder if they are real or a figment of Annie's imagination who believes herself being an actress when she is just a regular mental inmate. What about the madhouse and her brutal guards and strange inmates? And then there is the play of the title with a scenario that somehow materializes into Minerva and resembles what is to come...
The resolution of the dual-storylines is excellent and the ending is great making this a debut to remember. Just unbelievably good!!