Boston Castrato

Colin W. Sargent

Description

A modern classic in the making.

This book does for 1920s Boston what E.L. Doctorow did for New York in Ragtime: it grabs a city out of history and makes it vivid. Be it the high style of the Parker House Hotel; the flagrant, fragrant set who dance attendance on the poet Amy Lowell; the scientists and shipbuilders and politicians and utter rogues who raise the city from the dirt; it all shimmers into reality as an outsider leads us is into its quaking heart. Raffi, a young Italian, is our guide. He left more than his country behind in Rome. Snipped by a bishop as the last castrato, he is bundled off to America when the Church takes shame. Forbidden to use his voice, other skills steal him into the society of 1920s Boston. Raffi enters the hardest quest of all the search for a genuine love song.

Sujets

• Historical
• Roma (serie de televisión)
• América
• Italian
• Christianity
• Rome
• America
• Fiction
• Boston

Informations

• Publié par: Barbican Press
• Date de parution: 03 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909954212
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

‘Wicked shards of humor and sophisticated, astonishing word play reminiscent of James Joyce’s Ulysses make up the heart of this incandescent novel by Colin Sargent. The Boston Castrato chaperones its readers through early 20th century Boston’s nine circles of hell, led by Alighieri’s Dante and Virgil in the guise of an Italian Neapolitan castrato, Raffi, and his guide, a blind dishwasher named Victor. And, of course, there is a Beatrice, and a devil, and all manner of historical Boston figures, both famous and infamous. Sargent’s masterful command of the language, his respect for affairs of the heart, and his playful pokes at some of Boston’s bad-ass Brahmins combine to make this a rare book, one that will settle into the soul for a lifetime.’
Morgan Callan Rogers, author, Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea
‘As a child in Italy in the early 20th century, Rafaele Peach is castrated by a priest who wants to preserve and exploit his beautiful voice. But the practice has fallen out of favor, and Raffi is exiled to the U.S., where he makes his way to Boston and falls in with “a circle of misfits, dreamers, and strays.” Raffi’s picaresque adventures take him from the highest echelons of society to the mobsters, schemers and charlatans who occupy the bottom rungs. In exuberant and yet precise prose, Colin Sargent conjures a sweeping tale of love, murder, and revenge.’
Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
‘A musical priest disemballs a Neapolitan street urchin who thus begins a peripatetic journey that takes him to Boston where he becomes entangled in the web of Amy Lowell’s Modernist mob and the real one as well. What happens? Just about everything, none of which you will want to miss on the way to a “happy” (?) (!) ending.’
Lewis Turco, poet and author of The Book of Forms
‘Antic and episodic, The Boston Castrato is as hilarious as it is compassionate, intriguing and wise, the prose finely honed, and its metaphoric richness rendering even the darkest, zaniest scenes with a haunting tenderness. Colin Sargent is a fearless and generous writer, and his blend of humor and pathos takes the reader into both the heart of this story, and into the lives of these deeply imagined and unforgettable characters who inhabit it.’
Jack Driscoll, author of The World of a Few Minutes Ago

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‌ About the Author
COLIN W. SARGENT is a novelist, poet, and founding editor and publisher of Portland Magazine . Publishers Weekly praised his novel Museum of Human Beings as “a stylish look at the fate of Sacagawea’s baby son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.” As a helicopter pilot, Sargent was entranced by the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he has an M.F.A. from Stonecoast and a Ph.D. in creative writing from Lancaster University. He divides his time between the coasts of Maine, Virginia, and, when possible, the rest of the world.



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First published in Great Britain by Barbican Press in 2016
Copyright © Colin W. Sargent 2016
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention No reproduction without permission All rights reserved
The right of Colin Sargent to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Barbican Press, Hull and London Registered office: 1 Ashenden Road, London E5 0DP www.barbicanpress.com @barbicanpress1
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-909954-20-5 eISBN: 978-1-909954-21-2
Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London Cover by Jason Anscomb of Rawshock Design Cover photograph by Tilo Gockel

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Contents About the Author Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Acknowledgments
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Dear Johanna, Yes, everything must be a joke to me.
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‘These are the days of impossible beliefs.’
–R. Cortissoz, 1913
‌ 1

Quando il vostro diavolo era uno studente, il mio era l’insegnante.
When your devil went to school, mine was the teacher.
NAPLES, ITALY, 1906
This was going to be his day. Raffi seized control of the rail platform, pushing away the other scugnizzi just as the gleaming carriage from Rome slid to a stop. As the glass doors opened in the hiss of steam rising to the vaulted domes of Napoli Centrale station, he was encouraged to see it was full of a dressy crowd, all fur and silk ribbons. If he worked quickly, maybe he’d be able to eat more than just moldy bread tonight . He closed his eyes and cleared his mind.
He had just one shot.
Raffi started to sing, very slowly, very controlled. One missed note and he knew he’d lose them . This time he wouldn’t scratch the streets; he’d build a tower. He swept into ‘Caro Mio Ben’ in a lucky way, the soaring notes clear and fine without a hint of sharpness, exploring the sweetest heights of his range. The concourse wheeled slowly around him. He felt a warm rush. This was it . He was transported, all eyes on him.
In the dusty scuff, baggage handlers, vendors, soldiers, even the rats on the tracks–all stopped short. He had them.
His mother’s ghost drew near, set down her suitcase, smoothed her skirt, and fell into his music. Raffi drifted out of himself and into her heart. His pure notes curled above the gas globes and gate signs and vibrated across the ceiling, wafting back and forth until the echo seeped into the stones and became part of the foundation.
His captivated audience on the upper balconies held its breath. Even the massive locomotives lowered on their suspension systems as if to put their ears to the ground. Behind them, Mt. Vesuvius leaned into the window. Raffi’s final note was a shining arrow that pierced the coal-soot dusk as it rose to the domes, then softly fell.
‘ You are my wonder, ’ his mother cooed. ‘ You have such a gift. Don’t squander it. ’
Nannies joined the buzz and rewarded him with figs from the tin pails they hung from net-covered carriages.
‘How old are you?’ asked a lady with a beaver collar as she drew a coin for him from a drawstring bag.
‘Old enough,’ Raffi said, making people laugh, though he wasn’t sure why. He just knew six sounded like such a baby. Bad form to look at the purse. ‘Thank you, signora. Thank you, signor.’
‘Where are your parents?’ the lady asked.
‘My father lives at the base of the volcano, where the giants sleep.’
Fathers were luxuries. Who could boast of one? Grandfather Vesuvius knew him best. As long as he could remember, the slow blue slope had followed him–an attentive audience. It roamed with him through the city, into Virgil’s Tomb where he sold daguerreotypes to sightseers, down sooty alleys where the dustbins stood, rich with treasures, disappearing and reappearing at the end of sunlit squares to whisper, ‘I’ve got my eye on you.’
The woman watched as he stuck the coins in his pocket. ‘And your mother?’ she asked softly.
‘My mother died two months ago, from the typhus.’ He’d thrown himself down and wept beside the Fountain of the Little King.
The wallets and purses opened. Coins spilled and sparkled around him. Raffi looked behind her voice. A dark shape glided to the edge of the throng. A little man in a black robe. Crowded eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed Father Diletti watching.
‘Beginner’s luck,’ the priest said. ‘You can only travel through the zona di passagio like that if you have no idea what it is.’
Raffi looked for his mother, but she’d disappeared again. He felt a tug on his shoulder. ‘That’s enough, little stray,’ a carabiniere said. ‘Get out of this station, now. Stop bothering the tourists. Get out, I say!’ Awkwardly, the brute started dragging him. ‘A train station is no place for music.’
‘Hark,’ Diletti said. ‘I’ll handle this.’ In a quick motion he grabbed Raffi’s hand and led him away.
Squeezing his upper arm, Diletti yanked Raffi through the series of narrow alleys above via Vicaria Vecchia. Beyond the Archbishop’s Palace, a shadow cast a chill from the great gray stones of the Duomo di Napoli.
Inside the cathedral, Diletti soundlessly descended three passageways with a simian grace, pausing just once to light a candle without releasing Raffi’s arm. The boy heard water dripping on stone before he saw it in the flickering gloom. When had it started to rain?
‘Where are you taking me?’
Diletti turned on his heel, crouched, roughly gripped Raffi’s chin with his bony fingers, and stared him in the eye. ‘Consider this your baptism.’ The monk’s upper lip curled back, exposing the rotten teeth of his bulging maxilla. The black hairs in his flared nose were a tangle of snakes.
‘Why so close, old man?’ Raffi said. ‘Are you trying to kiss me? I’m not your girl.’
‘So cocksure, aren’t you? What a wolf pup I’ve brought into my choir, pissing on everything.’
‘You old queer.’
‘That screeching of yours back there might have impressed the illiterati, but to me it was sickening. I almost couldn’t watch it. Still, I might make a singer of you yet.’
The black stairwell where Diletti pointed was like looking into a rifle barrel. But Raffi relaxed when he heard the sound of a choir.
‘The practice area is in the basilica, above the necropolis,’ Diletti said. ‘We certainly don’t want to offend the angels if we’re not ready.’
In the murk, a railing barely saved Raffi from falling into a bottomless cistern from the slippery stairs. The sound of their steps rang along passageways decorated by faded fre