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The Boston Castrato

de Colin W. Sargent

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Runner up: 2016 New England Book Festival Award, General Fiction This book does for 1920s Boston what E.L. Doctorow did for New York in Ragtime: it grabs a city out of history, mixes in some fiction and makes it vivid. Be it the high style of Boston's 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 mmers into reality as an outsider leads us 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.… (mais)
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I won this in a GOODREADS giveaway. My thanks to the author, Colin Sargent, and Barbican Press for the giveaway!
( )
  tenamouse67 | Jan 6, 2018 |
"Boston Castrato" Explores the Beauty of the Outcast

“THE BOSTON CASTRATO”

Colin W. Sargent

Barbican. 292 pp. $17.95

Author André Berthiaume once wrote, “We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” The latest novel from author, playwright and poet Colin W. Sargent, “The Boston Castrato,” grapples with the same crisis of identity through protagonist Rafaele Pèsca, Americanized as Raffi Peach, who himself laments, “So much of life was hidden behind the drapes of things.”

Sargent’s is a novel about the beauty of the outcast, and a critique of the perverse push and pull of society’s simultaneous exploitative fascination with and disgust for those who are different. Sargent, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, lives in Portsmouth and in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his time spent stationed in Naples is reflected in his crafting of a novel about an Italian immigrant in America.

Raffi lives on the streets of Naples until he is 6, when a priest, Father Diletti, persuades him to join his choir. Diletti violates the church’s ban and castrates Raffi so that he may grow to be the next great castrato singer, like Alessandro Moreschi. Upon discovering this violation of its rules, the church sends Raffi to America to get him out of Italy. Before he leaves, the church makes Raffi swear that he will never sing again, leading to a lifelong internal struggle between his desire to celebrate his gift and to hide it out of shame.

After he travels between Italy and America for years off the page, we pick up with Raffi, abnormally tall with an androgynous voice and appearance, returning to Boston in 1922, 16 years after that fateful day in Italy. In Boston, he finally begins to reckon with himself and his past. His struggle with his identity, his desire to make something of himself, and his search for someone who will love and accept him are set against a backdrop colored with the brightest and darkest parts of 1920s Boston.

Raffi’s journey touches the most elite parts of Boston and sinks to dangerous depths as he works at a variety of places, from the famous Parker House hotel to communing with the dead for the Boston Society for Psychical Research. His zigzagging odyssey includes a rival from his past, the Italian mob, and has him grappling with the loss of loved ones. Although Raffi initially feels alone with his secret, he meets friends in both similar and vastly different situations and explores his identity. As he seeks the freedom to feel comfortable inside his own body, he also questions the consequences, as when he and his new friends cross-dress for the night:

"A sunny freedom sailed over him. He’d never been so far outside himself. He was accustomed to women’s eyes being on him, either out of curiosity or pity, and to unsettling glances from lonely blades, but here were gentlemen’s eyes, too. Passing to the ballroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in a gold-veined mirror – nightmarish lipstick, eyeliner, rouge, and all. 'You look very becoming,' the reflection said to him. 'But what are you becoming?'"

Through this journey, Raffi becomes increasingly focused on an upcoming performance by his idol, the castrato Moreschi. In all of his suffering, Raffi finds solace in knowing that Moreschi has gone through the same and come out thriving. However, Raffi, always observing and questioning himself as well as those around him, begins to doubt his own belief that Moreschi will hold all the answers he needs.

For weeks, he’d wondered about his need to talk with Moreschi and decided it was because Moreschi had plunged on ahead of him – an explorer on an expedition of hurt. Maybe culture, and particularly embarrassment, had a line of descent, too.

He feels a deep connection with Moreschi, often dubbed the last great castrato, as Raffi was the last boy castrated with the intention of following in his footsteps. Sargent’s novel is about the lonely life of an outcast, but also the connections forged through that loneliness.

One of the book’s most admirable accomplishments is the sheer range of characters and its commitment to showcasing a wide variety of self-defined outcasts, whether due to gender, age or physical impairment, and how they embrace their differences.

Sargent’s critique of 1920s society resonates today, calling for understanding and acceptance in the face of anything considered less than normal. In its colorful illustration of 1920s Boston, impressively showcasing Sargent’s extensive knowledge of both castrati and 1920s Boston culture and his carefully constructed prose, the story at times veers a little far into the bizarre, such as in a section told from the point of view of bacteria encased in canned clams. However, ultimately, Raffi’s multifaceted journey celebrates the strange and proves an endlessly entertaining ride through his world and the challenges he faces. From revenge, murder, lifelong rivalry, and love, little cannot be found in Sargent’s “The Boston Castrato.”
adicionado por ColinSargent | editarVirginian Pilot, Jackie Mohan (Feb 19, 2017)
 
The Boston Castrato Is a Brutal Story
Set in a Bygone Era

The new novel by Virginia [and Maine]
author Colin Sargent

Tough story set in 1920s Boston.

Mutilation is not an easy fictional theme, especially when a story opens with the castration of a six-year-old. This brutal, gory start is referenced repeatedly in Virginia-based author Colin Sargent’s new novel, The Boston Castrato, and it is not the only mutilation explored; foot binding is referred to, as are the podiatric agonies of ballet dancers. “It was every dancer’s secret shame. Each of her toes was bunged and purple with blood and coagulant, pus oozing from her split and ingrown nails.”

The idea, clearly, is the physical suffering endured for art; but the novel extends it to include the social and emotional contortions associated with music, dance, and poetry. With this theme, the novel sometimes succeeds and sometimes does not. When it does not, though, it is usually because a graphic description is deployed when a simple, realistic one would work much better. And realism does not require that every gaudily gruesome detail be exposed, merely that a social world that could exist, that may exist, be evoked.

The best sections of The Boston Castrato recount with easy realism the hero’s work in a hotel, another character at work in a shipyard, and other such seemingly mundane activities. The novel vividly renders the hotel—the Parker House—from the subterranean dish-washing stations to the gleaming wood of the bar, to the perfectly appointed dining room, to the owner’s office, and more. Indeed, the Parker House is more than mere setting, it is practically another full-fledged character, largely due to its pellucid rendering as a social milieu.

Then there are the literati and other luminaries. Since the book is a period piece, set in 1920s Boston, that era’s famous people—the art patroness Isabella Gardener, John Singer Sargent, and, from Vienna, Anna Freud—make appearances, while numerous others are mentioned: Sacco and Vanzetti, Henry James, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Bernard Berenson, and D.H. Lawrence. There are also allusions to the Russian revolution and the vogue of imagist poetry, which give the novel pizzazz, while the plot and subplots provide substance. But at the center of The Boston Castrato is the hero Raffi’s mutilation, which throws a terrible obstacle in the narrative’s path, namely the reader’s pity for him.
 
Book review: Real, imagined characters make memorable music in ‘Boston Castrato’
Colin W. Sargent's 1920s novel hits all the right notes on accuracy and fervor.

What a dream! What a song! Portland author Colin W. Sargent’s second novel, “The Boston Castrato,” is a whirlwind tale, abounding in fully realized historical and imagined characters, with convincing yet phantasmagoric settings that suggest a mild hallucinogen. Storylines appear to veer in all directions, but never fear, there is a core trajectory.

Shot through with wordplay that a few readers might term cruel and unusual punishment, the book is a nonstop delight to read. In spite of what the title might seem to suggest, it proves a love story.

This is the epic story of one Raffi Pesca, a Naples street urchin taken in by a creepy but earnest talent scout of a priest in 1906. The price of this ecclesiastical largesse is Raffi’s manhood. The reward: some gold coins and the gift of an extraordinary singing voice. However, high church officials, in a fit of early-20th century political correctness, defrock the priest, close his operation down and inform him that the “church is no longer in the monster business.” As with so many situations Raffi will soon encounter, this is the twilight of a tradition.

Not knowing quite what to do with the maimed child, church fathers rename him Rafaele Peach, give him a ticket to America, a start in the new world in a Bronx orphanage smack in the shadow of a neon sign for Underwood deviled ham. That sign, ubiquitous in the Northeast, will play a role over time and place, as both symbol and physical prop.

Adventures move our hero to Boston, Italy and back to the Yankee hub of the universe in the early 1920s, where a bewildering series of events ensnares and informs the now half-worldly, half-naïve but ever-ripening Peach.

At its widest scope, “The Boston Castrato,” is a first-rate picaresque, which should be read for the pure pleasure of the story, characters and ambiance. There are more circles than “The Divine Comedy,” as Sargent weaves together an investigation of the sterilization and sealing of “bad clams,” the unfolding of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and Ezra Pound’s savaging of poet Amy Lowell’s imagism as “amygism.”

Truly, though, it is Sargent’s impressive knowledge of place, time, people and spirit that sets the novel spinning on its own internal axis. Indeed, the author states that his insight into Naples was largely gained during his hitch in the Navy as a helicopter pilot and, though the story only resides there briefly, it is most convincing. The reader is bound to ask where Sargent gained such a wondrous, convincing understanding of the Boston literary, cultural and criminal life in the 1920s.

As a great fan of that time and place, then in its gaudy twilight, this reviewer stands in awe of the historical assuredness of place and character-driven pace. Much of the action surges in and around the grand Parker House, a surviving icon.

As the blare of the 1913 Armory Show and Jazz Age swamp the bohemian Brahmins and their minions, and as gifted amateurs are overtaken by professionals, one enters a fantastic world not available in a Frommer’s Guide list of worthies, available nowhere else that I am aware of, at least not in such honesty and resplendence. The characters may all wear masks, but in the end they reveal parts of themselves in sober honesty.

In the end too, Boston Brahmin poet Amy Lowell and her presumed literary executioner both lie entombed in the same academic encyclopedias, each given their own devil’s due. As for Mr. Peach, he takes his place among literature’s delightful and original characters.

William David Barry is a local historian who has authored/co-authored seven books, including “Maine: The Wilder Side of New England” and “Deering: A Social and Architectural History.” He lives in Portland with his wife, Debra, and their cat, Nadine.
 
KIRKUS REVIEW

Weaving together a dizzying number of intersecting plots, Sargent (Museum of Human Beings, 2009) captures the bustling excitement—and seedy grit—of early 1920s Boston.

As a child in Naples, angel-voiced orphan Rafaele Pèsca is taken under the wing of a renegade priest and castrated to protect his “one and only grace”—never mind that the practice is newly banned by the church. When higher-ups catch wind of what’s happened, Raffi is forbidden ever to sing again, at all, for any reason—his voice, having been “disfigured by the devil,” is now an abomination against God. And with that, the boy is put on a boat headed for an orphanage in New York City to “start a new life” not defined by “what is simply a medical condition.” But as adolescence approaches, his differences make him a target among the boys, and as his peers prepare to head to the front, Raffi hops on a boat back to Italy, where he excels on staff at the Hotel Forum, having discovered “a transforming eroticism in making strangers’ lives more fulfilled.” His return, though, is short-lived, and, rejected in Rome, Raffi once again heads toward America, this time to seek his fortune in Boston—ideally, at the world-famous Parker House, epicenter of the city’s elite. Arriving in the city, Raffi hustles his way into a job waiting tables and finds himself inducted into a society swirling with energy. Under the wing of Victor, his colleague and confidant, Raffi is introduced to the world of poet Amy Lowell and her partner, the actress Ada Russell, and their associates (many, though not all, of the characters here will ring a bell). He encounters love and tragedy, mobsters and mediums. While Raffi is the novel’s hero, the book is a whirlwind of perspectives and voices—some more successful than others—from art collector Belle Gardner to a colony of bacterium. The sheer number of characters can make the novel somewhat difficult to track, but the reward is a richly atmospheric melodrama that resonates.

Sweeping and ambitious.
adicionado por ColinSargent | editarKirkus Reviews (Aug 1, 2016)
 
Five stars, ForeWord Magazine

"It’s a lively American adventure that sparkles with wit and wisdom."

From its darkly picaresque beginning that features a cruel operation that alters a child’s destiny, Colin W. Sargent’s The Boston Castrato tells the strange and captivating tale of a rather different immigrant experience.

In 1906, little Rafaele Pesca, an orphan from Naples, is singing for his supper and loose change. He attracts the attention of Father Diletti, an unsavory priest who wants Rafaele’s voice to be even more distinctive—as a famed castrato. Though the procedure had been outlawed, Diletti performs the castration himself. Once the authorities learn what has happened, they take Rafaele away from Diletti’s clutches and urge the boy to start a new life. They also insist that he never sing again, because his voice is now “disfigured” by the devil.

Following an understandably confusing adolescence, Rafaele makes his way to Boston in 1922. Ambitiously charming, the tall, lanky Rafaele renames himself Raffi Peach and finds work at Boston’s Parker House Hotel. For anyone who might have imagined 1920s Boston to be a bit stuffy and not quite the toddling town of Chicago or New York, The Boston Castrato will likely change that opinion. Bustling with snobs, intellectuals, criminals, immigrants, artists, and a definite LGBT presence, Sargent’s Boston is vivid, violent, quirky, cultured, and peopled with memorable characters.

Raffi’s dreams of success in his adopted city are complicated by his desire to find a sexual identity. He pursues the lovely, compassionate Beatrice, but isn’t quite sure of what he has to offer romantically. Alternating with fictional personalities are characters like Imagist poet Amy Lowell and her longtime partner, actress Ada Russell. Initially suggested to be the “Yankee Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas,” Lowell and Russell share their own unique dynamic and are key players in The Boston Castrato’s plot.

Through personal triumphs and tragedies, Raffi’s support from Amy Lowell’s circle boosts his confidence and broadens his perspective, resulting in a lively American adventure that sparkles with wit and wisdom.
adicionado por ColinSargent | editarForeWord Magazine, Meg Nola (Jul 20, 2016)
 
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Runner up: 2016 New England Book Festival Award, General Fiction This book does for 1920s Boston what E.L. Doctorow did for New York in Ragtime: it grabs a city out of history, mixes in some fiction and makes it vivid. Be it the high style of Boston's 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 mmers into reality as an outsider leads us 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.

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