LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
A mystery and relationship story with Venice at its heart, it’s not a traditional crime novel and as such is all the more intriguing and satisfying. Travelling tour guide Mr Silvera and a Roman art buyer meet in Venice and fall into a passionate affair. One question remains, just who is Mr Silvera? This novel was first published in Italy in 1986. The translator Gregory Dowling has lived in Venice for four decades and his Translator’s Note is interesting. He details a little about this author pairing of Carlo Futtero and Franco Lucentini, who worked together for more than forty years, in none of their other novels is the setting so crucial as here. He declares that in general their descriptions: “testify to a full awareness of and feeling for the city’s complex history - and this all-pervading sense of the past turns out to be intrinsic to the plot and to its central mystery”. Venice itself is stunning, and takes a leading role within the story, it feels as though you are bearing witness to the truth about this city. Words stroll or dance across the pages, teasing and suggesting while allowing a sense of purpose to grow. The story at times sits within the hands of a narrator, the unnamed lady from Rome, which adds even more to the enigma that is Mr Silvera. I found this to be a rather different reading experience, and my advice is to let yourself sink into the pages in order to fully appreciate where you find yourself. Tantalising and clever The Lover Of no Fixed Abode is an atmospheric treat in which Venice stars.
Liz Robinson
Find This Book In
About
The Lover of No Fixed Abode Synopsis
The month, November. Glittering worldliness and dubious shabbiness overlap, passion and suspicion intertwine in a three-day Venetian adventure, bookended by the arrival of a plane and the departure of a ship.
It begins with a troubling encounter on a flight to Venice.
She is an elegant Roman signora on the search for undervalued paintings and he a mysterious tour guide. She is invited to cosmopolitan parties by Venetian social and art glitterati. Mr. Silvera, a guide whose erudition and distinction are in sharp contrast with his beat-up suitcase and stain-spotted raincoat, drags his shabby tourists from monument to monument. Their passion will last three days, long enough to be exposed to unscrupulous art dealers and other scammers, passing off worthless paintings as part of a famous collection. Silvera seems to know every language and all secrets. But who is he really? Around them, the canals and lagoons of Venice, a city which becomes a character in the novel in its own right.
About This Edition
Press Reviews
Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini Press Reviews
'Doyens of the Italian detective story, Fruttero and Lucentini, offer a perfect blend of the comedy of manners and the macabre...' - Tim Parks, author of Hotel Milano
'A labyrinth full of shapeshifting and ambiguity, sometimes sinister, often hilarious, for which Venice offers the perfect setting.' - Jonathan Keates, author of La Serenissima: The Story of Venice
'An undiscovered gem, finally available in English...witty, moving and enthrallingly atmospheric.' - Philip Gwynne Jones, author of The Venetian Legacy
Author
About Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini
Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini were a well-known literary duo in Italy for several decades until Lucentini’s death (by suicide) in 2002. For about forty years they co-wrote newspaper and magazine articles, literary essays, edited numerous anthologies and published six groundbreaking and best-selling mystery novels. Their first novel, The Sunday Woman, was made into a film in 1975 starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The Lover of No Fixed Abode, first published in 1986, is the fourth of their novels.
More About Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini
