“Blazing . . . casts a spell right from the start.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times“A timeless and heartbreaking love story.” –Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere“An extraordinary book.” –Lauren Groff, author of FloridaIlluminating one of the great love stories of the twentieth century – Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo – Leading Men is a glittering novel of … Frank Merlo – Leading Men is a glittering novel of desire and ambition, set against the glamorous literary circles of 1950s Italy
In July of 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysteriously taciturn young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives.
Ten years later, Frank revisits the tempestuous events of that fateful summer from his deathbed in Manhattan, where he waits anxiously for Tennessee to visit him one final time. Anja, now legendary film icon Anja Bloom, lives as a recluse in the present-day U.S., until a young man connected to the events of 1953 lures her reluctantly back into the spotlight after he discovers she possesses the only surviving copy of Williams’s final play.
What keeps two people together and what breaks them apart? Can we save someone else if we can’t save ourselves? Like The Master and The Hours, Leading Men seamlessly weaves fact and fiction to navigate the tensions between public figures and their private lives. In an ultimately heartbreaking story about the burdens of fame and the complex negotiations of life in the shadows of greatness, Castellani creates an unforgettable leading lady in Anja Bloom and reveals the hidden machinery of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.
more
I can’t stop thinking about this novel. I have very rarely encountered character development as rich and three-dimensional as it is in this book. It reminded me of one of my favorites, The Remains of the Day, not because of any plot similarities but because of the depth of the characters. I laughed, I cried, I felt deeply for the people in this story (who are based on real people) and have found myself thinking of them often over the past few days.
Another fun note is that this author lives in Boston and is the artistic director of GrubStreet, a fantastic literary organization based in the city!
I read Christopher Castellani’s Leading Men in one quiet, sunny, rapt afternoon, and spent hours afterwards just stunned from having been immersed in such a tender, psychologically devastating, and gorgeously precise novel. An extraordinary book.
The premise sounded promising but I couldn’t finish the book. Shallow characters with shallow lives.
This was a beautiful account of the complex relationship between Tennessee Williams and the man who was his partner and his muse, Frank Merlo. Castellani’s gorgeous, sensitive prose and searing evocation of place takes the reader deep into the time and the characters. I especially loved the character of Anja Blomgren, whose unique relationship with the two men for me anchors the book.
I knew I was in good hands from the first paragraph of this book. Very well written, fascinating characters, both real (Tennessee Williams and his lover, Frank Merlo) and fictional, this book has the feel of a story that has settled into the writer’s heart. A meditation on creativity, the muse, and purpose. Loved it.
Leading Men is a daredevil of a novel, like the prettiest boy in the gay bar doing a backflip off a stool and not spilling his drink. Castellani has set his eye on that ineffable profane that is the other face of the divine, in a novel that unites my obsessions with Tennessee Williams, Luchino Visconti, Truman Capote, film, cruising, and Italy, and wraps it up in a love story, but a story of old love–love of a kind we almost never see written.
With echoes of Tender is the Night and The Sun Also Rises, Leading Men tells the extraordinary love story of Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo. Castellani elegantly weaves together Merlo’s final days with memories of a dramatic (and delicious) Italian summer in 1953 that changes his world forever. Throw in an aging Swedish actress, Truman Capote, Italian cinema and the staging (and script!) of a lost Williams play and you have all the ingredients for a literary page-turner. Leading Men is about fame and love and forgiveness, about the ravages of time, and how we try to lay claim to the future, while the present slips through our fingers.
Leading Men is a novel as moving as it is entertaining, a book that restored my faith in the old cliche that only through fiction — by exploring the possibilities of what might have happened — can we reach the truth. Christopher Castellani has written an astounding novel of great imaginative empathy that, by the end, had this cynic weeping.
Leading Men stirs up the kind of beautiful trouble we admire in the work of Tennessee Williams. A clever, allusive, multi-layered novel filled with wit, insight, and heart. I loved it.
With extraordinary artistry and grace, Christopher Castellani interweaves history and invention to show us both the depths great artists are driven to and the love that draws them back. I know of few books that give such a moving account of the indispensable value of genius and its intolerable human cost. This is a novel of rare insight and beauty, and Castellani is a writer of brilliant gifts.
Leading Men is glorious, a meditation on the ravages of fame, an investigation into the private lives of public artists, and one of the most moving love stories I’ve read in ages. It’s hard to imagine better company on the page than Tennessee Williams and those who loved and loathed him. By bringing to life these literary visionaries, Christopher Castellani proves himself their eminently worthy heir.
Castellani’s first three novels captivated me thoroughly but Leading Men took all my emotions and ratcheted them up a level. I can’t stop thinking about this book. I fell in love with Frank Merlo and Anja Bloom, with Tennesee William’s Italian jet-setting ways, with the backdrop of 1950s Italy, with all of it. The book is beautifully written, so much so that now that I have read it to feel wrapped up in the story, I intend to read it again for the craft of it. I want to understand how he turns those gorgeous phrases, how he uses POV to unwrap the most delicate parts of the story, how he colors the world so the reader feels like they are a part of it. Bravo, Christopher Castellani, bravo.
This book was ground breaking for me in many ways. The structure was brilliant, but more than that was the rendering of the relationships – so difficult to define with societal lexicon – which suffered because there was no acceptable construct. There was so much love and caring between Frank and Tennessee and between Frank and Anja, but because these relationships were outside the norm, they were terribly vulnerable and subject to uproar. Never before have I read and empathized with characters who faced such exclusion from what was mainstream with regard to legitimizing relationships. Living in the shadow of a great artist, Frank Merlo won my heart. I truly rooted for him and in the end wept for him.
Besides providing an incredible lens into undefinable relationships there was the extreme fun of being in post war Italy and gaining a glimpse into the private lives (and social lives) of people like Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. The insertion of screen play and the alternating time lines (something I really love) made this book different, ambitious, and hard to put down. I can’t wait to discuss it with other readers.