From Netgalley in exchange for a review. Published in early 2015 by Palladino Books

It is 1918, and Tomaso Labella, an Italian newspaper editor, has just returned from burying Alessandra. Both of them have had a long history together, after Tomaso (aged 16) was sent to photograph Alessandra in 1898 for the local paper. Married to a violent drunk, she has already established a name for performing at séances and talking to the dead.

The rest of the story is Tomaso telling about Alessandra and the next year or so, being investigated for her possibly fraudulent psychic talents. She travels much of Europe with Tomaso and Lombardi, and is tested by many magicians, doctors and scientists. Much of the story concentrates on the seances that Alessandra performs for her guests, including the physical manifestation of a powerful mad priest from several centuries before. However it is the Englishman Huxley who gets under her skin and threatens everything, occasionally playing to her Neapolitan ego to provoke her into certain actions, with a final, fatal scene destroying everything.

This is a difficult book to try and describe any deeper without recreating the book itself. Much of the story is rather matter of fact, a fast paced physically demanding tour around Europe where Alessandra has to "perform" nearly every night she's staying still in one city or another. Lombardi (and to an extent Tomaso) holds a torch for her, but her pride, her goals, and her violent husband back in Naples, makes it difficult to love back, even after Lombardi divorces his wife and risks his reputation for her several times. There is a sub plot about the Vatican investigation Alessandra's history, that could have been expanded out a little more - it seems to have little purpose beyond the appearance of someone from Alessandra's past just ahead of the final seance, but no more.

Despite the story starting with Alessandra's death in 1918, the final chapters are unexpected enough to make it interesting, if not necessarily unexpected. Not having read anything else by this author, but knowing he's an ex-newspaper-man, I dont know whether the writing style of this novel is his own, or deemed suitable for a fictionalised story of an Italian medium who was investigated during the late 19th, early 20th century.

The author can be found on Amazon here

 

 

 

From Netgalley in exchange for a review. Published in early 2015 by Palladino Books

It is 1918, and Tomaso Labella, an Italian newspaper editor, has just returned from burying Alessandra. Both of them have had a long history together, after Tomaso (aged 16) was sent to photograph Alessandra in 1898 for the local paper. Married to a violent drunk, she has already established a name for performing at séances and talking to the dead.

The rest of the story is Tomaso telling about Alessandra and the next year or so, being investigated for her possibly fraudulent psychic talents. She travels much of Europe with Tomaso and Lombardi, and is tested by many magicians, doctors and scientists. Much of the story concentrates on the seances that Alessandra performs for her guests, including the physical manifestation of a powerful mad priest from several centuries before. However it is the Englishman Huxley who gets under her skin and threatens everything, occasionally playing to her Neapolitan ego to provoke her into certain actions, with a final, fatal scene destroying everything.

This is a difficult book to try and describe any deeper without recreating the book itself. Much of the story is rather matter of fact, a fast paced physically demanding tour around Europe where Alessandra has to "perform" nearly every night she's staying still in one city or another. Lombardi (and to an extent Tomaso) holds a torch for her, but her pride, her goals, and her violent husband back in Naples, makes it difficult to love back, even after Lombardi divorces his wife and risks his reputation for her several times. There is a sub plot about the Vatican investigation Alessandra's history, that could have been expanded out a little more - it seems to have little purpose beyond the appearance of someone from Alessandra's past just ahead of the final seance, but no more.

Despite the story starting with Alessandra's death in 1918, the final chapters are unexpected enough to make it interesting, if not necessarily unexpected. Not having read anything else by this author, but knowing he's an ex-newspaper-man, I dont know whether the writing style of this novel is his own, or deemed suitable for a fictionalised story of an Italian medium who was investigated during the late 19th, early 20th century.

The author can be found on Amazon here

 

 

 

Full review to come! ( )

There are many threads here but a few that caught up my attention were those that reminded me of other books.

The narrator, Tomaso Labella recalls [b:The Great Gatsby|4671|The Great Gatsby|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428718059s/4671.jpg|245494]'s Nick Carraway.

The depiction of class and community responses to spiritualism reminds me a bit of [b:The Fountain Overflows|103603|The Fountain Overflows|Rebecca West|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320522143s/103603.jpg|99891] .

The juxtaposition of English and European, male and female responses to the spiritualist herself were some of the best in the book. The way male scientists wanted to own or disown, credit or discredit the spiritualist herself reminded me a bit of the treatment of Mary Anning in [b:Remarkable Creatures|6457081|Remarkable Creatures |Tracy Chevalier|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327161912s/6457081.jpg|6647405] and [b:Curiosity|18420096|Curiosity|Joan Thomas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1410776889s/18420096.jpg|11165855]. ( )

The Witch of Napoli was very elementarily written and also predictable. It is the story of Alessandra Poverelli who can levitate tables and channel the ghost of Savonarola. Everybody is out to discredit Alessandra, even the Church. This novel is loosely based on the controversial Italian medium Eusapia Palladino and pits the church and science against the possibility of an afterlife. Might have been a better story with a better writer/storyteller! 350 pages 2 1/2 stars ( )