Rupert Thomson. (2014). Secrecy: A Novel. Other Press.

Rupert Thomson. 2014. Secrecy: A Novel. Other Press.

Rupert Thomson, Secrecy: A Novel. Other Press, 2014.

Rupert Thomson. Secrecy: A Novel. Other Press, 2014.

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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Thomson, Rupert
   • bioText: Rupert Thomson is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels, including The Insult, which was short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Prize and chosen by David Bowie as one of his Top 100 Must-Read books of all time, and Death of a Murderer, which was short-listed for the Costa Prize. His memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop, won the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year. He lives in London.
   • name: Rupert Thomson

publishDate

2014-04-22T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Secrecy

fullDescription

A sorcerer in wax. A fugitive. Haunted by a past he cannot escape. Threatened by a future he cannot imagine.
 
Zummo, a Sicilian sculptor, is summoned by Cosimo III to join the Medici court. Late seventeenth-century Florence is a hotbed of repression and hypocrisy. All forms of pleasure are brutally punished, and the Grand Duke himself, a man for whom marriage has been an exquisite torture, hides his pain beneath a show of excessive piety.
The Grand Duke asks Zummo to produce a life-size woman out of wax, an antidote to the French wife who made him suffer so. As Zummo wrestles with this unique commission, he falls under the spell of a woman whose elusiveness mirrors his own, but whose secrets are far more explosive. Lurking in the wings is the poisonous Dominican priest, Stufa, who has it within his power to destroy Zummo’s livelihood, if not his life.
 
In this highly charged novel, Thomson brings Florence to life in all its vibrant sensuality, while remaining entirely contemporary in his exploration of the tensions between love and solitude, beauty and decay. When reality becomes threatening, not to say unfathomable, survival strategies are tested to the limit. Redemption is a possibility, but only if the agonies of death and separation can be transcended.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New Yorker
   • content:

     "Thomson paints a suspenseful picture of the moody, factional world of Florentine politics and draws parallels with the inner life of an artist whose work imitates darkness and decay."

2. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus
   • content: "Thomson succeeds on a number of levels here, for the novel works as a mystery, as a love story, as a historical novel and, more abstractly, as an exploration of aesthetic theory."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist
   • content: "Thomson brings Renaissance-era Florence to life with rich descriptions and scenic locales. Readers who have toured Florence will enjoy revisiting the sites in the mind's eye, and historical fiction fans in general will relish the virtual trip brimming with mystery and intrigue."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: "Beautifully evocative prose...makes this unusual historical novel truly memorable."
5. • premium: False
   • source: BookPage
   • content: "Thomson's thorough research and exceptional skill for the sort of detailed storytelling often missing in historical novels make Secrecy an absorbing and thrilling mystery, full of dark alleys, gray skies and cobblestone."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World
   • content: "Reads like a fairy tale for adults."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Historical Novel Society
   • content: "Under the surface of Thomson's startlingly inventive prose, the stories within the stories bring to light the many faces of secrecy--those imposed against one's will, those sought out and relied on, and those which people carry unknowingly, like the hour of their death--which mark and shape all human lives."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Historical Novels Review
   • content: "Secrecy is also a stunning literary piece. The author uses language with as much skill as his hero Zummo uses wax, and the luminous city of Florence reveals a shocking core of corruption and darkness. If you are a fan of Umberto Eco, don't miss Secrecy. Highly recommended."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Financial Times
   • content: "Chillingly brilliant and sinister...masterly."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Daily Mail
    • content: "Bewitching...Intensely atmospheric...Superb."
11. • premium: False
    • source: The Observer (UK)

    • content: "Scene after scene trembles with breath-stopping tension on the edge of bliss or dread. No one else writes quite like this in Britain today."
12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      February 10, 2014
      Beautifully evocative prose (“A burnt-orange sun dropped, trembling, from behind a bank of cloud, like something being born”) makes this unusual historical novel truly memorable. In 1691, a mysterious artist known as Zummo, or Zumbo, with a taste for the macabre, is summoned to Florence by Cosimo III, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. After viewing a typically grim sample of Zummo’s work, a tableau in wax depicting plague victims in various stages of deterioration (titled The Triumph of Time), Cosimo hires Zummo to craft a realistic-looking, life-sized woman out of wax. The commission rubs Dominican cleric Stufa, the spiritual adviser to Cosimo’s mother, the wrong way. Subsequent court intrigue turns deadly, and, throughout, the reader wonders about the prologue, set in 1701, in which Zummo meets the abbess of a convent in Orléans, Marguerite-Louise, whom he confronts with news of her secret daughter before launching into a flashback to his involvement with the Grand Duke. But the plot twists take a back seat to the complex picture Thomson gives of his oddball protagonist, a man given to wandering around carrying “little theaters filled with...the dead and dying” in the name of art. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary.

13. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      February 15, 2014
      Thomson (Death of a Murderer, 2007, etc.) takes us to 17th-century Florence, which by definition seems to be full of corrupt politicians, unscrupulous clergy and aspiring artists--and this, of course, long after the Renaissance has ended. We begin with a dialogue between Italian sculptor Gaetano Zummo (called "Zumbo" by the French) and Marguerite-Louise of Orleans, now an abbess at a convent but formerly wife of Cosimo III, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Zummo's reminiscences take him back some 25 years, though the bulk of the action occurs about 10 years before his meeting with the abbess. He's been summoned by the Grand Duke on an odd commission--the Duke wants Zummo to sculpt the female form, perfect in every detail, from wax. The Duke in part wishes to escape a marriage in which his wife does not try to hide her contempt for him and, particularly, for his failings as a lover. (The Duchess has plenty of experience in this amatory realm and is thus likely a fair judge of her husband's lack of prowess.) In his wanderings around the city, and in his need to experiment with various techniques to produce the desired aesthetic result, Zummo meets Faustina, a lovely Florentine. They quickly become lovers, and Zummo develops a strong desire to protect her, for she's being both pursued and persecuted by an exceptionally cruel and sensual Dominican priest named Stufa, nicknamed, for reasons that become obvious, "Flesh." Through some detective work, Zummo eventually discovers that Faustina is in fact the daughter of the Grand Duchess, but this knowledge does not protect her, and Zummo comes up with a plan to forever rid their lives of Stufa. Thomson succeeds on a number of levels here, for the novel works as a mystery, as a love story, as a historical novel and, more abstractly, as an exploration of aesthetic theory.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

14. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      Starred review from February 1, 2014
      

      In 2010, Thomson gave readers a glimpse into his personal life with a heartbreaking memoir, This Party's Got To Stop. No stranger to historical fiction (Air & Fire), he sets his new work in 17th-century Florence, drawing on the life of Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, a Sicilian sculptor granted patronage by the grand duke of Tuscany to create a replica of his wife in wax. Given the cultural climate of Florence and the looming threat of the Roman Inquisition, it is a dangerous commission. In the process of completing the grand duke's order, the novel's protagonist, Gaetano Zummo, falls in love with a local woman with a dark past, runs afoul of a Dominican priest, and uncovers the complicated relationship that links them all together. Through picturesque language, the historical space of Florence becomes an ideological filter through which concepts of power, religion, and identity are interpreted and critiqued. VERDICT A page-turning historical thriller by one of Britain's finest writers; Thomson's lyrical and economical style draws comparisons to George Eliot's Romola.--Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

15. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 1, 2014
      Florence is a dangerous place for freethinkers, lovers, and artists at the end of the seventeenth century. An atmosphere of repression has settled over the region, and people are held in check by religious figures in powerful places. Zummo the wax sculptor has been summoned there by the grand duke, Cosimo III, and after years of wandering, he is pleased with the pay and relative freedom the duke's patronage affords. No stranger to scandal and conspiracy, though, he recognizes the dangers inherent in the duke's secretive commission and in his own burgeoning love for the niece of the apothecary. As the domineering Dominican priest Stufa closes in, Zummo must find a way to release them all from the grip of Florence's darkest powers. Though some anachronistic details occasionally interrupt the realism, Thomson brings Renaissance-era Florence to life with rich descriptions and scenic locales. Readers who have toured Florence will enjoy revisiting the sites in the mind's eye, and historical fiction fans in general will relish the virtual trip brimming with mystery and intrigue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

popularity

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A sorcerer in wax. A fugitive. Haunted by a past he cannot escape. Threatened by a future he cannot imagine.
 
Zummo, a Sicilian sculptor, is summoned by Cosimo III to join the Medici court. Late seventeenth-century Florence is a hotbed of repression and hypocrisy. All forms of pleasure are brutally punished, and the Grand Duke himself, a man for whom marriage has been an exquisite torture, hides his pain beneath a show of excessive piety.
The Grand Duke asks Zummo to produce a life-size woman out of wax, an antidote to the French wife who made him suffer so. As Zummo wrestles with this unique commission, he falls under the spell of a woman whose elusiveness mirrors his own, but whose secrets are far more explosive. Lurking in the wings is the poisonous Dominican priest, Stufa, who has it within his power to destroy Zummo’s livelihood, if not his life.
 
In this highly charged novel, Thomson brings Florence to life in all its vibrant...

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