I’m happy to report that Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter’s eighth book (seventh novel) lives up to every enthusiastic blurb that adorns its front and back covers, including accolades like “a literary miracle!” and “damn near perfect.” As a result of this victory, Walter is now my second-favorite guy with a girl name, though he remains behind reigning champion Ashley Wilkes from Gone With the Wind. (Because I mean, wasn’t he just so nice?)
Ruins opens on the Italian coast in 1962, in a nearly defunct fishing village where Pasquale Tursi—owner and proprietor of the only hotel—is busy rearranging rocks in an attempt to form a beach, which he hopes will draw tourists to the otherwise desolate town. As if summoned, there suddenly appears on the dock Dee Moray, a striking American actress who is spending a night in Porto Vergogna before traveling onwards to Switzerland, where she is slated to receive medical treatment for stomach cancer. Enamored of Dee’s beauty—and struck by her serendipitous arrival—Pasquale sets about getting to know her, and in so doing unearths a story whose ramifications span continents, decades and generations.
Continue reading “Stop what you’re doing and read Beautiful Ruins”
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