Kirjahaku

An unforgettable novel about a man's search for meaning.

Margot Harrington's memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica - and the misguided love aff air it inspired - is now, 25 years later, being made into a film. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course, their script is not used, but never mind - happy endings are the best endings for films, as Margot eventually comes to see. At the former convent in Florence where The Sixteen Pleasures - now called The Italian Lover - is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.

Robert Hellenga, bestselling author of "The Sixteen Pleasures, " once again reveals his profound understanding of the strength and resilience of the human spirit in a compelling and masterful novel. Alan Woodhull ("Woody"), a classics professor at a small Midwestern college, finds himself convinced that life has taught him all the lessons he has to learn: After the tragic death of his beloved oldest daughter during a terrorist bombing in Italy seven years ago, his wife has left him and his two remaining daughters have grown up and moved away. Yet his decision to attend the trial of the terrorists and to return to the scene of the tragedy marks the beginning of a new life and the awakening of a new love.

In the lush countryside of 1950s Michigan, young Martin Dijksterhuis has everything he could ever want, living among his extended family and working in his family's orchard fields. Despite his mother's plans for him to attend college in Chicago, he has no desire to leave home. One autumn, in a camp of migrant farm workers, Martin discovers a music that touches him like nothing before -- the unsettling melodies and timeless words of the country blues. He also falls in love with Corinna, the daughter of the black foreman who runs the orchards. He ends up fathering her child, only to lose her in a stunning betrayal. Martin's music and his love for Corinna are the two themes of his life. His struggle to combine them in a single story takes him far from home and the life he had always envisioned for himself, only to bring him back again in a way he could never have imagined. In this beautifully rendered novel, Robert Hellenga explores the fragility of happiness, the struggle to discover one's true calling in life, and the sorrows and satisfactions of family.

On the morning of his fortieth birthday, anthropology professor Jackson Jones contemplates his future: Should he return to Africa, where he did his fieldwork, and live with the Mbuti, or should he marry and settle down in the Midwestern university town where he now teaches? On the morning of her release from prison, Sunny, who grew up in a snake-handling church in the Little Egypt region of Southern Illinois, rents a garage apartment from Jackson. Sunny and Jackson are drawn to each other, but then push comes to shove in this page-turning novel brimming with wit, substance, emotional depth-a fascinating and original story that delivers Robert Hellenga at the top of his form.Robert Hellenga was educated at the University of Michigan and Princeton University. He is a professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the author of the novels "The Sixteen Pleasures," "The Fall of a Sparrow," "Blues Lessons," "Philosophy Made Simple," and "The Italian Lover." Visit his Web site at www.roberthellenga.com.Praise for "Snakewoman of Little Egypt" "Both thoughtful and action-packed...Readers will once again find great pleasure in Hellenga's intelligent, generous-hearted work.""-Chicago Tribune""A masterpiece. Thank you, Mr. Hellenga."-"Washington Post Book World"

Margot Harrington, an American volunteer in Florence, is an expert at book conservancy. While struggling to save a waterlogged convent library, she comes across a fabulous volume of sixteen erotic drawings by Giulio Romano, accompanying sixteen steamy sonnets by Pietro Aretino. When first published over four centuries ago, the Vatican ordered all copies destroyed. This one--now unique--volume has survived. The abbess prevails upon Margot to save the order's finances by selling the magnificently illustrated erotica discreetly--meaning without the bishop's knowledge. Margot's other clandestine project is a middle-aged Italian who is boldly attempting radical measures to save endangered frescoes. She is 29 and available; he, older and married. He shares her sense of mission and soon her bed in this daring story of spiritual longing and earthly desire.

"The Confessions of Frances Godwin" is the fictional memoir of a retired high school Latin teacher looking back on a life of trying to do her best amidst transgressions--starting with her affair with Paul, whom she later marries. Now that Paul is dead and she's retired, Frances Godwin thinks her story is over--but of course the rest of her life is full of surprises, including the truly shocking turn of events that occurs when she takes matters into her own hands after her daughter Stella's husband grows increasingly abusive. And though she is not a particularly pious person, in the aftermath of her actions, God begins speaking to her. Theirs is a deliciously antagonistic relationship that will compel both believers and nonbelievers alike.From a small town in the Midwest to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, The Confessions of Frances Godwin touches on the great questions of human existence: Is there something "out there" that takes an interest in us? Or is the universe ultimately indifferent?

"The Truth About Death," the title novella of this virtuosic collection, is a masterpiece of sardonic humor that confronts Death head on and emerges bloody but unbowed. Simon, an undertaker, embalms his own father and faces his own death. Louisa, Simon's mother, makes peace with her husband over his dead body in a cooler in the basement of the funeral home. Simon contemplates the mystery of death over a plate of spaghetti cacio e pepe in Rome with an Italian undertaker. The dog, Maya--who works as a greeter at the funeral home where she comforts those who are grieving hardest--eventually makes the truth about death known to Elizabeth, Simon's wife. New Yorker cartoons keep the family laughing during the most difficult months, Elizabeth decides to show her own cartoons (included here), to the New Yorker cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, at his office in New York. The serious issues cleverly addressed in The Truth About Death are touched with warmth, humor, and deep feeling in the eight "Other Stories," not by invoking comforting fairy tales but by accepting the fact that death and grief are part of the natural order of things. As Maya explains to Elizabeth, "It's just the way things are."