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Jay Parini's
The Apprentice Lover is a smart and sexy coming-of-age novel marked with the sense and sensibility of the '70s and the Vietnam War. After Alex Massolini's brother dies in Vietnam in 1970, Alex drops out of Columbia University and travels to Italy to work as a secretary for Rupert Grant, a famous Scottish writer living on the isle of Capri. Villa Clio, where the irascible Grant lives with his wife, is the center of singular and sybaritic scenes involving Grant's two young research assistants, the unstable Marisa and the aloof Holly. Dinner brings cruel psychological parlor games and such literary luminaries as W.H. Auden, Graham Greene, and Gore Vidal. Brilliantly brittle dinner dialogue is contrasted with the raw, emotional letters to Alex from his brother Nicky in Vietnam. During his months on Capri, Alex learns much about the craft of writing from the riveting yet monstrous Rupert Grant, who comes to resemble the lustful and dictatorial Roman emperor Tiberius, exiled to Capri. In the wake of a tragic death, a romantic off-island interlude, and a thrown dagger, Alex decides to flee Capri, only to come back 30 years later for a final reckoning. In
The Apprentice Lover, Parini has created an unforgettable portrait of a literary titan and his youthful apprentice.
--Susan Biskeborn
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Literary figures large and small populate this smoothly written coming-of-age novel by Parini (The Last Station) set on the island of Capri. Alex Massolino, raised by his mother to be the family's "brainy" boy, is a student at Columbia University when his brother, Nicky, "the lesser son," is killed in Vietnam in 1970. Troubled by Nicky's death and suffocated by his mother's attentions, Alex drops out and takes a secretary/apprentice job with famous Scots novelist and poet Rupert Grant on Capri. Grant, like Robert Graves, embodies his poetic theories in his sexual life: he lives with his wife, Vera, and two female "muses," Holly Hampton, a young blonde blueblood, and Marisa Lauro, a beautiful but disturbed Italian girl. Alex is soon sucked into the island's glitterati scene, where he meets real writers like Graham Greene and Gore Vidal, and is befriended by Dominick Bonano, a dead ringer for Mario Puzo. As the title suggests, Alex gets a sexual education, mooning over Holly but succumbing to Marisa's more accessible charms. Grant, an old satyr, seems to need Alex's rivalry to put an edge on his conquests. The stress on Alex, Holly and particularly Marisa takes its toll, and Alex leaves Capri on a sour note. His failure to gain much wisdom from his experiences makes his stay on the island seem rather hollow, though the emptiness is partly filled by his rereading of Nicky's Vietnam letters, which provide a respite from the decadent world of the Grants. Parini's perennial interest in literary biography is skillfully interwoven here with a theme that has absorbed writers since Henry James: what price does the American soul pay for European sophistication? (Mar.)Forecast: In a letter addressed to booksellers, Parini writes that The Apprentice Lover is more accessible than his earlier novels, and says he hopes it will attract a wider audience. He may very well be right the setting and cast list in particular should appeal to readers with even a glancing interest in literary glamour.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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