Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #242739 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Synopsis
The story of a love affair between a young man and an older woman in Taormina, Sicily, in the sixties.' This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it' He, the narrator, is a twenty-one-year-old American art student travelling the world. She is a countess - apparently cold, haughty and inaccessible. And with her is the doctor Haroun, her gay travelling companion. When he makes their acquaintance at the Palazzo D'Oro, the narrator finds himself filled with unexpected lust and playing a part in something he doesn't quite understand. Finally, aged sixty, he returns to Taormina to tell his story and confront the present. Filled with Theroux's typically effortless but devastating depictions of place, The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro is a brilliant portrayal of ageing and decay, and a shocking tale of nostalgia and sensuality in a golden age. Echoing the ambiguities of risk and remembered sexuality, the accompanying tales enlarge upon these themes of age and pursuit - the sexual awakening and rites of passage in an American boyhood, the mirror of a writer in Africa at a moment of crisis, and of a man in Hawaii bewitched by dishevelled nymphs.

This is a startling chronicle of memory and desire.

Customer Reviews

portrait of the artist as mutton dressed as lamb
That title's a little harsh, however, I came away disaatisfied: both with the shortness of the stories (one story in particular came across as if from his notebook that he didn't value or couldn't be bothered to write properly) and with the adolescent egocentricity - in particualar the story about the adolescent. The writing is good, the topics are ingenuious and provocative. He's very good at sex and grounding it the real world and other events and thoughts. As my introduction to Theroux, not sure I'll read another though.

Sexy, stylish and utterly compelling
This book is a real jewel to revel in: lush, mouth-watering descriptions, strong believable characters and passages evoking scents, textures and emotions. It's a collection of short stories based on events occuring in the childhood of a boy named Andy, and a novella (the title story) about a young man's sexual awakening in Italy.

Theroux's talent lies in creating characters one can really understand and empathise with. For me, his main triumph lies in the short stories about Andy and his friends. It's like "Stand By Me" on paper, with a darker side. If Theroux decides to write more about Andy, Walter and Chicky, I for one will be queueing to buy the book!

A literary work of art; pictures painted by words.