The Uncle from Rome [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph Caldwell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Michael Ruane, an undistinguished opera singer from Indiana, has come to Naples to play a minor role in an important production of Tosca and an important role in a minor production of Curlew River . As this shrewd and splendid novel begins, the diva starring in Tosca asks Michael to play yet a third role. It is, she tells him, an old Neapolitan custom to pay a distinguished-looking man to attend family functions and pose as the "uncle from Rome," his presence suggesting the host's prestige and social standing, and she wants Michael to appear at the wedding of local friends in the guise of the groom's uncle. Michael agrees, entangling himself in a complex drama that rivals the two operas in its passion and surpasses them in its capacity for perpetual surprise. Caldwell ( Under the Dog Star ) balances the theatrics of his plot with an understated narration, and weights his themes--the interplay of life and art--with careful, colorful observations. (Of laundry hung out to dry, for example, he writes: "The bold emblems or the tattered banners sent out their jubilant or melancholy news, and one could tell at a glance who was favored and who was scorned by the local gods.") The finale is nothing short of extraordinary.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Michael Ruana is in Naples to direct and star in Curlew River and to sing the compirmario part in Tosca . His third role, which he agrees to take on as a favor to his leading lady, is to pretend to be the "uncle from Rome" at a local wedding. According to tradition, the attendance of the uncle from Rome lends prestige to the family and the occasion. Michael cannot seem to escape his role after the wedding, instead finding himself drawn into the grand opera of life in Naples. He is released only after the tragic death of one of his "nephews," a release that is cathartic and allows him to escape his detachment from himself. The story is rich with detail and layered with operatic highs and lows. It is everything opera should be in novel form.
- Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Connecticut at Torrington Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140157077
• ISBN-13: 978-0140157079
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,726,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life imitates opera, March 26, 2009

By 

e. verrillo (williamsburg, ma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Uncle from Rome (Mass Market Paperback)

The Uncle From Rome is one of those rare books that manages to combine cultural melodrama, personal angst, hilarious comedy, and good cooking - all at once - in a veritable soup of personal and cultural contradictions. Caldwell himself states his case for the incoherence of the human soul when Michael describes the typical Neapolitan as profoundly contradictory - cruel and kind, vain and humble, warm and cold. But Caldwell captures these contradictions of the human spirit neatly, accurately and with scathing humor.

Our hero, Michael, is an ambitious opera tenor who is doomed to play bit parts. Ostensibly, he is in Naples for a performance of Tosca. But, in reality, he has come to Italy so that he can finally be a star in his own production of an obscure Benjamin Britten opera. But the true proof of his under-appreciated talent comes when he is ordered by Tosca's diva to impersonate a fictitious "Uncle from Rome" in order to lend an air of prestige to a wedding. Michael manages to pull his "bit part" off perfectly, but with entirely too much success. In his role as the "Lo Zio da Roma" Michael must prevent a murder - which he does with simultaneously hilarious and tragic consequences. When all the contradictions come together, and everything inevitably falls apart, Michael himself comes unstrung in a tense climax that will have you glued to the pages. The last paragraph is literally to die for.

Caldwell skewers the fantastic and ridiculous world of Neapolitan pride/opera/family (exaggerated, yet somehow perfectly true)with a wit that is so sharp it's painful. The contrast between Italian high melodrama with Michael's own state of desperate, but equally self-dramatized ennui, is truly marvelous. Caldwell is a true connoisseur of the arts, of artists, and of everything that makes "Nabladans" and, well, people in general, simultaneously wonderful and unbearable. Bravo, Giuseppe. Bravissimo!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Tragedy at the Opera, January 5, 2001

By 

Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncle from Rome (Mass Market Paperback)

I enjoyed this book. Not an opera fan myself, it used the opera culture as a backdrop for an interesting tightly knit plot. The detail used to describe Naples transported me. The twists in the book, the double-life of Michael Ruane as a supporting opera actor and his assumed identity of Don Michel, the uncle from Rome, interweave to create an fascinating tapestry. All of the supporting characters are well drawn. Cross-dresser Piero with his wry smiles and penchant for betrayal was my favorite. The Italian flare for emotion was beautifully illustrated in the Gaetano and Peppino, the two brothers fighting over the multi-layered Rosalia. If there were any weakness in the book, for me it was in Michael's character. He never seemed to know who he was, a man adrift in search of true emotion. While this may be the point, it kept me distanced from him. The only other thread that didn't quite gel for me was the result of the Curlew River Opera. Not knowing whether it was a success or not seemed to mute one of the major subplots. However, that is a minor objection to the volatile love triangle that is played out with Michael as the uncle, and the reversals that come fast and furious as the book climaxes in operatic fashion at the end. Read and enjoy!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Naples! Pasta! Opera!, January 19, 2000

By 

Susan Byers (Willits, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncle from Rome (Mass Market Paperback)

I had the opposite reaction to this book: for me it jelled to perfection! The Kirkus reviewer obviously doesn't know any divas or any Italians. I found the book a joy to read -- very funny, colorful, and filled with well-wrought sentences that begged a second perusal. Caldwell kept me right with him through all the outrageous twists and turns of the plot, like a tour of the Neopolitan back passages. If anything, I felt that the section focusing on Michael's ex-lover was the weakest in the book, not the strongest. Maybe you have to be a singer yourself to fully appreciate the tenor's angst and the life-as-aria theme to the book, but I found it delicious fun to read, moving, and memorable.