- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (July 21 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061472565
- ISBN-13: 978-0061472565
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.5 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #639,065 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Novelist Elsa Morante and the city she symbolized come alive in this warm, sprightly literary biography. Novelist Tuck (The News from Paraguay) surveys Morante's life: her troubled relationship with an unstable mother; her salad days writing magazine pieces along with having to occasionally resort to prostitution to make a living; World War II, when she and husband, Alberto Moravia, both half-Jewish, hid out from Fascist persecution in a mountain village; her postwar dolce vita immersed in friendships, affairs and dinner-table debates with Rome's glitterati. Morante emerges as a complex, vibrant character—difficult, mercurial and fiercely (often rudely) devoted to truth-telling, but also kindhearted and charismatic. Tuck ties the biographical details—and analyses of her subject's dreams and handwriting—to sympathetic but critical analyses of Morante's protean works, which include the hothouse melodrama of House of Liars, the darkly beguiling Huckleberry Finn fable of Arturo's Island and the pitiless meditation on force and corruption of her bestselling History. Tuck sets the life in a colorful evocation of Morante's milieu, enlivened by her own youthful reminiscences of Italy's postwar film scene, that makes the book a love letter to Rome as well as to her subject. Photos. (July 29)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Woman of Rome is a dazzling read, full of passion for the odyssey of a writer.” (Chicago Tribune )
“A lovely and worthy biography, the first of Morante to appear in any language.” (Washington Post )
“...well-researched, empathetic “Woman of Rome” is both a work of literary reclamation and an act of long, deep, devoted connection...[Morante’s] life and work come alive in this account.” (Boston Globe )
“Tuck is fascinated by Morante’s drive to continually reinvent herself and blends memories of her own childhood into Morante’s story, memories that add texture and a sense of honesty to the biography.” (Los Angeles Times )
“Written with a charming personal touch...that warms the narrative to a fine glow, this is a vital biography bringing to American audiences a writer most will have previously known little about.” (Booklist (starred review) )
“One literary doyenne takes on another in Lily Tuck’s wonderful, sensitive biography of Elsa Morante...This is one not to miss, both for its subject and its exquisite prose.” (Louisa Ermelino, Publishers Weekly (Staff Picks) )
“Equal parts literary biography and liberation tract, this engaging volume...elegantly achieves its dual aims. Rarely have subject and biographer been so aptly matched.” (Atlantic Monthly )
“Everyone who cares about the literature of the 20th century must be grateful to Lily Tuck for her measured, elegant, and revelatory biography of Elsa Morante.” (Mary Gordon )
“Lily Tuck understands Morante instinctively—it is as if Morante has been waiting for her, as if this book is a part of all that she lived for.” (Susanna Moore )
“For worldly understanding alone, there is nothing of recent vintage quite like this entrancingly written and compellingly forthright biography.” (Phillip Lopate )
“A lovely and worthy biography, the first of Morante to appear in any language.” (Washington Post )
“...well-researched, empathetic “Woman of Rome” is both a work of literary reclamation and an act of long, deep, devoted connection...[Morante’s] life and work come alive in this account.” (Boston Globe )
“Tuck is fascinated by Morante’s drive to continually reinvent herself and blends memories of her own childhood into Morante’s story, memories that add texture and a sense of honesty to the biography.” (Los Angeles Times )
“Written with a charming personal touch...that warms the narrative to a fine glow, this is a vital biography bringing to American audiences a writer most will have previously known little about.” (Booklist (starred review) )
“One literary doyenne takes on another in Lily Tuck’s wonderful, sensitive biography of Elsa Morante...This is one not to miss, both for its subject and its exquisite prose.” (Louisa Ermelino, Publishers Weekly (Staff Picks) )
“Equal parts literary biography and liberation tract, this engaging volume...elegantly achieves its dual aims. Rarely have subject and biographer been so aptly matched.” (Atlantic Monthly )
“Everyone who cares about the literature of the 20th century must be grateful to Lily Tuck for her measured, elegant, and revelatory biography of Elsa Morante.” (Mary Gordon )
“Lily Tuck understands Morante instinctively—it is as if Morante has been waiting for her, as if this book is a part of all that she lived for.” (Susanna Moore )
“For worldly understanding alone, there is nothing of recent vintage quite like this entrancingly written and compellingly forthright biography.” (Phillip Lopate )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Woman of the World, Mar 3 2009
By Frances J. Kiernan - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Woman Of Rome: A Life Of Elsa Morante (Hardcover)
From start to finish, Lily Tuck brings to this nuanced and dazzling biography of a difficult woman the intuition, the appreciation, the empathy, and the skill of a writer no less gifted than her subject. Both personal and acute, this book resembles no literary biography that has come my way. Like its subject, it will always be a true original.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT!!!!, Mar 21 2009
By Patricia V. Blitzer "Booked Up" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Woman Of Rome: A Life Of Elsa Morante (Hardcover)
I'd never heard of Elsa Morante before a good friend recommended WOMAN OF ROME. Not only couldn't I put it down, I've ordered all of Morante's and all of Tuck's books on line. To think I'd never heard of Morante, a woman who lived life purely on her own terms. And what a life! Lily Tuck won the National Book Award and I can see why. Her prose is pitch-perfect, smart, often funny and invariably moving. I loved this book. Elsa Morante is blessed to have Lily Tuck as a biographer. I'd give ELSA MORANTE: WOMAN OF ROME 100 stars if I could.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elsa Morante a tantalizing figure, Mar 3 2009
By Molly Haskell - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Woman Of Rome: A Life Of Elsa Morante (Hardcover)
Lily Tuck captures the fundamentally elusive nature of Elsa Morante. Morante is a difficult subject, not easy to love or understand, but tantalizing all the same, and an important and (in America) overlooked writer. Tuck, with her deft, non-judgmental style, her cosmopolitan detachment, is the perfect biographer. She can love Morante without needing to completely explain or understand her. A terrific job!
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