The Uncertain Hour: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jesse Browner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2007

a.d. 66: Having been falsely implicated in a plot to assassinate the emperor Nero, Titus Petronius has a choice: await the executioner at dawn, or die a noble Roman death by his own hand. Deciding that his will be a suicide like no other the world has ever seen, he summons a small circle of intimate friends to his magnificent villa on the enchanting Tyrrhenian coast of southern Italy. There, over the course of a balmy autumn's night, Petronius throws the party of a lifetime. As they feast on course after course of the most sumptuous and exotic fare the empire has to offer, his guests are expressly forbidden to dwell on the imminent tragedy; instead, they are enjoined to sing, eat, drink, and celebrate. But as his life dwindles to a few precious hours, Petronius himself cannot shake off the ghosts of his past or his regret over mistakes that can no longer be set right. With the fateful dawn approaching, he recalls the great love affair of his life, and his years as Nero's "Arbiter of Elegance." Not until the very end will he bequeath his magnum opus, The Satyricon, to posterity.
 
Exquisitely written and profoundly moving, The Uncertain Hour is a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome and a gripping entrée into the mind of a great man during his final hours.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This engaging historical novel opens in A.D. 66, with Roman aristocrat Titus Petronius planning his suicide. Emperor Nero has falsely implicated him in an assassination plot, and the high-born Petronius prefers suicide to dishonor. Setting his affairs in order, he organizes an elaborate banquet for his close friends before he retires to his quarters to open his veins. Between sumptuous courses, elevated conversation and bawdy verse, Petronius muses on his past, and philosophical reflections on the meaning of life accompany a string of flashbacks, many of which detail the former governor's romance with a centurion's wife, Melissa Silia. Reviewing his career, Petronius realizes more attention to his mistress and less to the temptations of ambition would have avoided this disaster. Meanwhile, at the banquet, the grief of a young friend who cannot accept Petronius's refusal to flee to safety threatens to spoil the mood. Browner (Turn Away) has done his homework, and his meticulous description of a Roman banquet and its attendant rituals, as well as his account of first-century Roman politics, letters and even clothing styles, is immediately immersive. Browner creates with considerable skill a snapshot of Roman life—and death. (June)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Having been implicated in a plot against Emperor Nero, Titus Petronius Niger, a soldier, senator, and courtier known as Nero's "Arbiter of Elegance," must perform his duty and fall on his sword. On the eve of the Saturnalia Festival, Petronius plays host to a gathering of his closest friends for a farewell banquet and to honor the sacred obligations of hospitality. A sumptuous meal is prepared, served, and consumed as Petronius, at intervals, removes himself from the festivities to open a vein and begin the process of ending his life, a feat that he hopes to accomplish by dawn. Browner (author of the novelsConglomeros, 1992, and Turnaway,1996, as well as a history of hospitality, The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down,2003) deftly captures, with minute detail, patrician life circa 66 C.E., filling his narrative with beautiful descriptions of Petronius' villa, his slaves, the Aegean, and the abundant delicacies of the final feast (sweetbreads, black pudding, sea urchins, dormice, and sow's vulva). Petronius endeavors to find meaning in his life and control his legacy during his last hours. The novel is enhanced by Petronius' conversations with Martialis, a Spanish-born poet who enjoys his patronage, provocatively addressing issues of loyalty and integrity. The real-life Petronius is said to have been the author of Satyrican. Benjamin Segedin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596913398
• ISBN-13: 978-1596913394
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,624,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly moving, June 28, 2007

By 

James Gifford (Utica, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncertain Hour: A Novel (Hardcover)

I found myself very caught up in this book, a depiction of Petronius's last day. Determined to die as he has lived, and condemned to death by Nero, he throws a final dinner party for his friends. Petronius's reflections on his life and what people and events have meant to him become absorbing and worthwhile fiction. How an author so young could fantasize what would go through a man's mind during his final hours is the true amazement here. I was reminded what Dracula said to Van Helsing, "For one so young you are very wise." A moving and lovely book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Arbiter of Elegance", July 1, 2007

By 

Stanley H. Nemeth (Garden Grove, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncertain Hour: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a simply wonderful novel, allowing any reader with a historical interest the pleasure first of all of seeing ancient Roman life in startling concrete detail through the eyes of a remarkably sophisticated, witty person, Petronius, the Emperor Nero's Stoic/Epicurean ruler in matters of taste.

As others have mentioned, the novel is principally set on the last day of Petronius' life at the special farewell banquet - honeyed dormice are among its delicacies - which he's arranged before his own suicide, himself having fallen out of Nero's favor owing to court intrigue. Interspersed are flashbacks which give the background of Petronius' chief relationships in life, those with his cryptic mistress Melissa and his hotheaded, emotionally free Spanish protege, the poet Martial.

Even more pleasurable than the historical dimension is the human dimension of Petronius' life, his strengths and limitations, which Browner as philosophical novelist richly sets forth. As an emotionally reserved general who's spent much time in the provinces, Petronius is of the opinion that, though life should be lived well and nobly, public life at the courts of emperors offers much to endure and little to enjoy, and that a guardedness in such is, consequently, the path best followed. His private attachment to his mistress, though, for this very reason of his habitual tempermental reserve becomes one which, unfortunately, leaves too much unsaid. Their rapprochement towards the novel's end, after so much indirection, is credibly rendered and astonishingly moving.

Set against Petronius' reserve, which we've seen colors even his private life, is the emotional openness, anger, and general imprudence of his adopted son of sorts, Martial. The handholding and goodbyes of these two wonderfully realized figures in the novel's final pages are also moving in the extreme.

The epigraph of the novel anticipates Henry James' urging that one should above all actually "live," rather than choosing to get through life without having to experience its joys and pains. I think in recognizing Melissa's loyalty - a light shows she's waited up for him to assist in his final act - and in telling Martial that he loves him as a son, Petronius for all his philosophy comes to realize he's in fact experienced those two consolations of a life often nasty, brutish and short - love and friendship.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life as a banquet, September 6, 2007

By 

Yalensian - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Uncertain Hour: A Novel (Hardcover)

Jesse Browner imagines the final hours of Titus Petronius Niger, the emperor Nero's "arbiter of elegance," in this convincing novel of ancient Rome. Knowing he has fallen out of the emperor's graces and will be tried and sentenced to death on the first day of the Saturnalia festival, Petronius holds a banquet for his closest friends and, true to Roman honor, plans to kill himself at the dinner's conclusion at dawn. Browner tells the tale from Petronius's perspective, focusing on his memories, regrets, concerns about his legacy, and meditations on his life: What is the good life? Is there meaning to life? To death?

Browner can be lyrical, as when describing the sea or the sky, but he is occasionally ham-fisted; for instance, when Petronius asks his slave girl what she would do if she were free, Browner writes that a bird flew into the villa and "would surely break its neck trying to get out again." Surely there's a less banal way to describe the perils of freedom? Yet he also produces unexpected descriptions that linger with the reader: the value of a certain ladle is "worth enough to change her life forever."

Browner also succeeds in building tension as Petronius's suicide approaches. Petronius is no Hamlet and has no fears about what dreams may come. He resolves himself to his death, and in the end, so do we -- though, contra history, we might wish he could have lived on.