Y’all,
Leah Greenblatt from Entertainment Weekly said this
Every summer, the beach-read conundrum begins — whether to slog virtuously through Anna Karenina or Infinite Jest, or succumb to the kind of Fifty Shades of Tattooed Twilight genre pulp that practically shrieks to passersby, ”Why, yes, I did buy this on layover at the Miami-Dade airport!” Bless the latest from Jess Walter (The Financial Lives of the Poets) for offering a near-perfect rendezvous between those distant poles — a novel whose decade- and continent- hopping ingenuity expertly scratches the seasonal itch for both literary depth and dazzle. (for full review go here)
Maureen Corrigan from NPR said this
This novel is a standout not just because of the inventiveness of its plot, but also because of its language. Jess Walter is essentially a comic writer: Sometimes he’s asking readers to laugh at the human condition; sometimes he’s inviting us to just plain laugh. (for full review go here)
Nina Sankovitch from Huffington Post said this
In all his books, Jess Walter is smart and generous and prodigious, and Beautiful Ruins is no exception. Surprises abound but Walter keeps his plot tethered to reality, resonating and reverberating and building to a conclusion that is as satisfying as it is gratifying. Dreams can come true, just not the ones you expected. (for full review go here)
Allegra Goodman from the Washington Post said this
Adept at mixing flavors and textures, Walter whips together dying beauty, enduring love, war-shadowed Italy, haunting landscapes, veiled identity. It’s a tribute to his light touch and to his speed that when movie star Richard Burton makes a cameo appearance in Italy, he’s almost bearable, even though he’s more cartoon than character: “What goddamn kind of place hasn’t got a bottle of cognac in it?” (for full review go here)
Before even reading these reviews I wanted to read this book. Quite frankly I was hung up on the beautifully nostalgic cover. It simply LOOKED like something that would be good. I think we all read fiction for entertainment. To read a good love story, to be scared, attempt to figure out a mystery, laugh, or simply marvel at the language or style a writer uses. I have a tendency to lean more towards snobbish fiction. I rarely read mystery books, but that cover just looked TOO good. What I found I appreciated. His editor mentioned that the book “defies classification.” I think that is exactly right. The story may unfold in the same way a mystery might, but it does so in a way that doesn’t entertain only on a story’s level.
The book follows an Italian man in the 60s who once knew a cinema actress. The book follows a Hollywood producer’s assistant. The book follows a failed novelist turned possible screenwriter. The book follows a failed musician struggling to find his life as a musician again. The book follows a writer who is actually a car salesman who doesn’t write his novel about WWII that he pretends he is writing. The book follows that Hollywood producer who is described as
a man constructed of wax, or perhaps prematurely embalmed. After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, … lifts and staples, collagen implants, … tannings, … cyst and grow removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a nine-year-old Filipino girl.
It is a funny, sad, interesting book that spans several generations of people, jumps through time and characters, and is quite alive and gripping as it does so. I listed Leah Greenblatt’s comment first for a reason. I think she hit the nail on the head. This is the perfect summer book. This is the perfect book club book. It is the even median between a literary piece of fiction and a trashy mystery novel. Beautiful Ruins is sure to please anyone.
This is from the Spiritualized’s new album that I listened to while I read this book.
by Simon
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