Product Description

It was seven years ago that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil achieved a record-breaking four-year run on the New York Times bestseller list. John Berendt's inimitable brand of nonfiction brought the dark mystique of Savannah so startlingly to life for millions of people that tourism to Savannah increased by 46%. It is Berendt and only Berendt who can capture Venice--a city of masks, a city of riddles, where the narrow, meandering passageways form a giant maze, confounding all who have not grown up wandering into its depths. Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble--foundations shift, marble ornaments fall--even as efforts to preserve them are underway.

THE CITY OF FALLING ANGELS opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective--inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city-- while gradually revealing the truth about the fire. In the course of his investigations, Berendt introduces us to a rich cast of characters: a prominent Venetian poet whose shocking 'suicide' prompts his skeptical friends to pursue a murder suspect on their own; the First Family of American expatriates who lose possession of the family palace after four generations of ownership; an organization of high-society, party-going Americans who raise money to preserve the art and architecture of Venice, while quarreling in public among themselves, questioning each other's motives and drawing startled Venetians into the fray; a contemporary Venetian surrealist painter and outrageous provocateur; the master glassblower of Venice; and numerous others--stool-pigeons, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, believers in Martians, the Plant Man, the Rat Man, and Henry James.

Berendt tells a tale full of atmosphere and surprise as the stories build, one after the other, ultimately coming together to reveal a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting. The fire and its aftermath serve as a leitmotif that runs throughout, adding to the elements of chaos, corruption and crime, and contributing to the ever-mounting suspense of this brilliant audiobook.

Bonus feature includes an exclusive interview with the author!


From the Compact Disc edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1478369 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.50" w x 9.00" l, 1.32 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 414 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Berendt reads his own nonfiction exploration of the seamy side of Venice with an insider's hushed tones, chronicling the life and times of the city's movers and shakers like a naughty child sharing an overheard secret. Following up his similar study of Savannah in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt has cobbled together a series of entertaining tales of the legendary canal city, ranging from the squabbles of Venetian fund-raisers to the fire in the Venice Opera House. Like a cocktail-party raconteur with a particularly juicy story to tell, Berendt twists his listeners' ears with his book's seamless stringof Venice-themed misbehavior and decadence. Only occasionally overemoting, Berendt mostly maintains the proper tone of high-society gossip delivered succinctly. Berendt's intimate voice helps to tie together the disparate strands of his sometimes-sprawling book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Magical, exasperating, sometimes mystifying, but finally enormously awe-inspiring, Venice, Italy--the city itself--becomes the vibrant and vital main character as Holter Graham, in an exceptionally fine reading, presents the account of a devastating conflagration of the Fenice Opera House and the civil investigations that followed. (The irony of such an event in a city noted for its waterways is inescapable.) Further richness includes insightful descriptions of a variety of contemporary characters inhabiting this ancient and sometimes otherworldly city. Poetry lovers will appreciate the significant, sad, and sometimes tragic accounts of Ezra Pound's poetic legacy. Ultimately, Graham's fine reading, along with Berendt's valuable information and penetrating observations, results in a captivating audio presentation. L.C. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
The author's phenomenally best-selling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994), which, for a record-breaking four years, remained on the New York Times best-seller list, drew tourists in droves to the lovely city of Savannah, Georgia. Will his thoroughly engaging new book do the same for the tourist trade to Venice, Italy? In 1996, Berendt planned an extended, off-season stay in Venice. Just three days prior to his arrival, Venice's world-famous opera house burned to the ground. He uses the official investigation into the disaster and the construction of a new opera house as a paradigm of civic and social life in this enigmatic city whose importance to the world -(other than as a tourist destination) has long vanished, and he uses the personal stories of the wide variety of individuals with whom he became acquainted during the course of his stay not only to enrich but also to personalize his account. This is journalism at its most accomplished; it is creative nonfiction as enveloping and heart embracing as good fiction. Brad Hooper
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