By Rupert Thomson
A sorcerer in wax. A fugitive. Haunted via a prior he can't get away. Threatened via a destiny he can't imagine.
Zummo, a Sicilian sculptor, is summoned by way of Cosimo III to affix the Medici court docket. past due seventeenth-century Florence is a hotbed of repression and hypocrisy. All sorts of excitement are brutally punished, and the Grand Duke himself, a guy for whom marriage has been a beautiful torture, hides his ache underneath a convey of over the top piety.
The Grand Duke asks Zummo to provide a life-size girl out of wax, an antidote to the French spouse who made him undergo so. As Zummo wrestles with this precise fee, he falls lower than the spell of a lady whose elusiveness mirrors his personal, yet whose secrets and techniques are way more explosive. Lurking within the wings is the toxic Dominican priest, Stufa, who has it inside of his energy to ruin Zummo's livelihood, if now not his life.
In this hugely charged novel, Thomson brings Florence to lifestyles in all its shiny sensuality, whereas last totally modern in his exploration of the tensions among love and solitude, good looks and rot. whilst fact turns into threatening, to not say unfathomable, survival concepts are validated to the restrict. Redemption is attainable, yet provided that the agonies of demise and separation could be transcended.
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Extra info for Secrecy: A Novel
Sample text
He pushed the door to after him, and eased the great latch soundlessly into place. The peg—Matthew Smith had never realised what manner of illicit tool he was providing—he drew out and pocketed, for the sight of it protruding would have been enough to launch the hounds after him, and how did he know the watchman had not been given orders to keep an eye on his room? It would be his father who first came to visit him in exile in the morning, he was quite sure of that; somewhat uneasy in mind after sleeping on his rage, inclined to regret that he had carried execution to such lengths, and firmly resolved this time to be gentle and patient with the obdurate boy, but he would end up by beating him again, of course.
He was crying now; he wished she would go, and yet he could not bear to let her go. He kissed her warm cheek, and took away his arms almost roughly, dropping into the pillow again with a great sigh. When she stooped over him, peering at him closely, he kept his eyelids half-closed, and breathed long and softly, as though he were already slipping into drowsiness. Satisfied, she kissed his brow, and withdrew with the lamp, closing the door gently after her. As soon as she was gone he opened his eyes again, and they were dry and bright and wide-awake.
All that was over. A hush of curiosity, sympathy and almost pleasurable excitement followed him through the hall. The men-at-arms paused over their dice as he threaded his way through the romping dogs in the rushes, and climbed the stairs to the solar. He looked at no one. Only a little while ago their knowing sympathy would have galled him to the quick, but now it had ceased to be of any importance. "Wipe your face," whispered Ebrard at the door. " He thrust his own kerchief into Harry's hand, and waited for him to scrub the filth of dust and tears from his cheeks.