Jukebox Queen of Malta [Paperback]

Nicholas Rinaldi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2000

It is 1942 and Malta is under siege. Rocco Raven, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is left to wander the devastated streets of Valetta in a bewildered daze until he sees an apparition, Melita, a beautiful, ethereal woman. It is the beginning of an extraordinary relationship.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the annals of great literature, Malta's one potential claim to fame is that it might have been the location of Calypso's island in The Odyssey; apart from that, this tiny, windswept island midway between Italy and Libya makes itself scarce on the fictional front. But Nicholas Rinaldi brings it front and center in his remarkable second novel, The Jukebox Queen of Malta, and if his descriptions of the place leave you cold, his characters won't. Set during the early years of World War II, the story begins with the arrival of American soldier Rocco Raven, late of Brooklyn, during an air raid. While running from an attacking Messerschmitt, Raven is rescued by Jack Fingerly, a shadowy character who may--or may not--be an Army intelligence officer. To Rocco, a car mechanic in civilian life with a taste for Melville, Nietzsche, and Edgar Allan Poe, nothing about Malta makes sense--except his feelings for Melita Azzard, the eponymous heroine whom he meets during one of the incessant bombings that punctuate life on the island:

There was a freedom to the way she moved, a confidence and self-assurance. She paused to look up as yet another Stuka swept by, this one trailing a plume of black smoke from its fuselage. Then she looked back, over her shoulder, and saw him coming along half a block behind her.

Though the romance between Rocco and Melita is at the heart of the novel, Rinaldi has more than wartime love on his mind. His island is a marvelous place populated by unhappy pilots who get promoted every time they're shot down; repairmen who have turned jukeboxes into a wartime industry; old men who dream of a "Greater Malta" composed of an annexed Italy ("Sicily we don't want, it's too full of thugs and mafiosi. Rome we give to the pope, but the rest of Italy is ours"); and ordinary people who carry on their quotidian lives in the midst of not-so-quotidian carnage. There's a dreamy, disturbing quality to this novel, as though Catch-22 and Alice in Wonderland met and married. Rocco blames it on the island: "Malta was doing this--everything shifting, turning, uncertain"; the reader, however, knows better. This jewel of a novel owes everything to Nicholas Rinaldi's tilted imagination and considerable prose talents. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In fluid prose and with subtle psychological insight, Rinaldi (Bridge Fall Down) writes of wartime love as a kind of complex anesthetic, or as a soul-saving form of amnesia during violent times. During the early years of WWII, U.S. Army Corporal Rocco Raven is sent to the small Mediterranean island of Malta on a vague intelligence mission concerning wire taps. Because of its key geographic position between Sicily and Africa, Malta has been subjected to daily Italian and German bombardments, and it seems that the only person keeping his head clear of falling rubble is Roccos commanding officer, shifty Jack Fingerly, who dresses inappropriately in a Florida sports shirt and disappears when the going gets bad. Walking along pitted streets lined by gutted buildings, Rocco meets and immediately falls in love with Melita Azzard, a beautiful, green-eyed Maltese woman who drives a pink Studebaker hearse, delivering her cousin Zammits handmade jukeboxes to the many bars that cater to English and American troops. Rocco learns Maltese history from Nardu Camilleri, whose national pride drives him to vainly shoot at enemy planes with his outdated rifle. As the conflict accelerates, Rocco and Melita occasionally manage to escape, driving through Maltas rocky terrain and swimming naked in the ocean, and Rocco hopes for a future that sanctifies their love. Readers may find echoes of Louis De Bernieress Correllis Mandolin here, in the juxtaposition of local history, island romance and senseless violence, but Rinaldis voice is distinct in its honest portrayal of a peoplelong deprived of food, information and entertainmentstruggling to reconnect to the world. While sometimes the plot momentum slows with long-winded dialogue, this is a compelling tale of lovers straining to hear the music through the din of a war-ravaged planet.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 462 pages
• Publisher: Black Swan (February 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0552998109
• ISBN-13: 978-0552998109
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 7.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,695,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Authentic and absorbing, January 1, 2002

By 

Rosanne Dingli (Karrinyup, Western Australia Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The JUKEBOX QUEEN OF MALTA: A Novel (Hardcover)

The atmosphere created by Nicholas Rinaldi in this novel is authentic: this was Malta in WWII, when there was constant bombing, little food and a common desperation that led to individual acts of heroism, ingenuity, folly. Having lived in Malta for 27 years, the scenes, characters and dilemmas created by Rinaldi reawakened in me a kind of nostalgia; reminded me of the steadfast, ingenious Maltese: their seige mentality, pious irreverence and black humour. The writing is crisp, immediate and evocative, with passing references to literary and historical stuff, emotional and psychological stuff and religious and philosophical stuff: but it is never heavy, overbearing or dry. This is an engaging novel that entertains while it makes the reader wonder (because it is obvious the history on which it is based is real) how the human spirit experiences, endures and lives to overcome. There are insurmountable obstacles facing the characters in this books. There are classical juxtapositions of characters and scenes. There are locations that suddenly take on personalities of their own, taking charge and dominating the story. That's Malta for you: its history, presence, size and improbabilities arrest the heart. In this case, it made an author stay and write on. I found it hard to put down, and will find it hard to forget.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Maltese Opinion, September 18, 2000

By 

Caroline Zammit (Malta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The JUKEBOX QUEEN OF MALTA: A Novel (Hardcover)

Being a Maltese myself I was more interested to find out about the portrayal of Malta and the Maltese by Rinaldi...and I must say I was impressed. This book is so well researched that it actually includes newspaper cuttings of the time (some of the shops advertised at that time still stand today!). His description of the hardship endured by the Maltese during the Second World War is absolutely spot-on without being over-dramatic or too romantic. His characters are so real, the plot so clever I could not put the book down.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Novel to Close the Century, September 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The JUKEBOX QUEEN OF MALTA: A Novel (Hardcover)

Written at the tail of the Twentieth Century, "The Jukebox Queen of Malta" takes a look back to mid-Century, spotlighting characters and a people who defy a part of the horrific terror induced by WW II. In so doing, the novel touches upon many of the major intellectual themes of the past one-hundred years (Self-Other, Fragmentation, the Individual, the Absurd), providing a fitting synthesis of these currents for the closing of the millenium. The writing is fluid, lyrical and flows like a dream.