Description
An expansive yet intimate story of desire, artistic ambition, and fidelity, set in the glamorous literary and film circles of 1950s ItalyIn 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? LikeThe MasterandThe Hours,Leading Menseamlessly 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.
About the Author
Christopher Castellani has published five books, most of which center on the Italian, Italian-American, and/or queer experience.His first novel, A Kiss from Maddalena (Algonquin, 2003) won the Massachusetts Book Award in 2004; its follow-up, The Saint of Lost Things (Algonquin, 2005), was a BookSense (IndieBound) Notable Book; the final novel in the trilogy, All This Talk of Love (Algonquin, 2013), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Literary Award.The Art of Perspective: Who Tells the Story, a collection of essays on point of view in fiction, was published in 2016 by Graywolf Press, and is taught in many creative writing workshops.His most recent novel is Leading Men, for which he received Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Leading Men was published in February 2019 by Viking Penguin. Leading Men is currently being adapted for film by Peter Spears (Oscar-winning producer of Nomadland) and acclaimed Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name).Christopher is the current Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University. He is also on the faculty and academic board of the Warren Wilson MFA program and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Since 2019, he has chaired the Writing Panel at YoungArts, aka the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. For nearly twenty years, Christopher was in executive leadership at GrubStreet, where he founded the Muse and the Marketplace national literary conference and led the development of numerous programs for adults, teens, and seniors; he continues to work with GrubStreet in the role of Senior Advisor to the conference.The son of Italian immigrants and a native of Wilmington, DE, Christopher was educated at Swarthmore College, received his Masters in English Literature from Tufts University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Boston University. He lives in Boston and Provincetown, MA.
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