June 28, 2012 / Leslie

Review: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter

Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Harper
Publish Date: June 12, 2012
Format: Hardcover | 352 pages
Rating: 5 of 5

Pasquale Tursi, owner of the Hotel Adequate View in the remote, secluded coastal village of Porto Vergogna, Italy, was amazed to see a beautiful woman arriving by boat. It was 1962 and she was an American actress, Dee Moray, working on the movie Cleopatra. She was sick, dying she thought, and had been sent there by the movie’s production assistant, Michael Deane, for a few days before continuing on to Switzerland for treatment. But Dee wasn’t sick, she was pregnant.

Fifty years later in Los Angeles, Pasquale Tursi is searching for Dee Moray. He finds Michael Deane’s studio and his assistant, Claire, who thinks he is there to pitch a movie, but she soon realizes the story he is telling her is real life.

We alternate between the events in Italy 50 years ago and the present day Los Angeles, with a few chapters taking place in the 70s. There are several different points of view and a multitude of characters. Most of these characters are flawed, tragically flawed, and for all their faults I still liked them and cheered for them like I would for an underdog. The writing is beautiful. At times funny, other times sad, but always compelling and engaging.

This is a difficult book to describe. There is so much going on but it is all seamlessly woven together. We easily transition between characters and time and place. Most fascinating are the stories within the story. There is a writer staying at the hotel in Italy in 1962; he is writing a book on his life story but in seven years he has only written one chapter. There is the aspiring screen writer in present day Los Angeles pitching his movie, The Donner Party, a story about cannibalism that is so bad it’s good, which Michael Deane pretends to like. And finally, the first chapter of Michael Deane’s Memoir, a fascinating account of 1960’s Hollywood and events on the set of Cleopatra, but the lawyers say he can’t publish it. We get to read each of these stories as a chapter mixed within the book. Eventually all are relevant to the bigger picture.

In the end, the pieces come together. We learn what happens to all the characters, loose ends are tied up, and the reader is left satisfied. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. There is also an absolutely gorgeous cover, a painting of the sun drenched Italian coastline, every bit as beautiful as the story itself. Highly recommended.

About the Author

Jess Walter is the author of five novels, including The Zero, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, and Citizen Vince, winner of the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. He has been a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and the PEN USA Literary Prize in both fiction and nonfiction.
His books have been New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR best books of the year and have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in Spokane, Washington.