Wow, probably the read of the year. This is a huge book and possibly very underrated.
The central character, whose name I forget, is a muscular (metaphorically speaking) gay writer of low-grade entertainments born around the turn of the 20th century. He travels all over the world but mainly Europe (1920’s & 30’s), US (40’s and 50’s) but then really all over and meets everyone in the literary world — Joyce, Elliot, Hemingway etc.
His sister marries an Italian operetist, whose (apparent) brother is a priest and berates our hero about his homosexuality. Towards the end of the book, the priest has performed a really scary exorcism in the Far East, sheltered Italian anti fascists from the brown shirts and latterly Germans, and become pope.
It is a huge burlesque but also very serious novel about the 20th century and will be re-read. It makes ‘A Stranger’s Child’ by Alan Hollinghurst look totally effete — hence 'muscular’ homosexuality above.
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