#Review of The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux @AstorandBlue

The worlds of art, politics and passion collide in John L’Heureux’s masterful new novel, The Medici Boy. With rich composition, L’Heureux ingeniously transports the reader to Donatello’s Renaissance Italy—directly into his bottega, (workshop), as witnessed through the eyes of Luca Mattei, a devoted assistant. While creating his famous bronze of David and Goliath, Donatello’s passion for his enormously beautiful model and part time rent boy, Agnolo, ignites a dangerous jealousy that ultimately leads to Agnolo’s brutal murder. Luca, the complex and conflicted assistant, will sacrifice all to save the life of Donatello, even if it means the life of the master sculptor’s friend and great patron of art, Cosimo de’ Medici. John L’Heureux’s long-awaited novel delivers both a monumental and intimate narrative of the creative genius, Donatello, at the height of his powers. With incisive detail, L’Heureux beautifully renders the master sculptor’s forbidden homosexual passions, and the artistry that enthralled the powerful and highly competitive Medici and Albizzi families. The finished work is a sumptuously detailed historical novel that entertains while it delves deeply into both the sacred and the profane within one of the Italian Renaissance’s most consequential cities, fifteenth century Florence.

John L'Heureux has served on both sides of the writing desk: as staff editor and contributing editor for The Atlantic and as the author of sixteen books of poetry and fiction. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, and have frequently been anthologized in Best American Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. His experiences as editor and writer inform and direct his teaching of writing. Since 1973, he has taught fiction writing, the short story, and dramatic literature at Stanford. In 1981, he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and again in 1998. His recent publications include a collection of stories, Comedians, and the novels, The Handmaid of Desire (1996), Having Everything (1999), and The Miracle (2002).

I really loved this book.  I ended up rereading it because the first time it didn't set very well with me.  But at the time I was under a lot of stress via a death in the family.  

Ok so this one was unbelievable. I have to say that I hold a special place for all things Renaissance!  

Seeing the inner circle of Gonatello through the experiences of Luca was just amazing!  

I really wonder how much of this book is based on fact and how much is based on fiction.  Because after reading this book.  I have found myself wanting to learn more.  

This book is so Romeo/Juliet in the fact that it is about forbidden love.  

I love how the book was written as a sort of tell all confession by Luca.  I have to say that the part about the cat kind of disturbed me.  I ended up skimming that section and if you can't handle that kind of thing I would suggest you do the same.  

I loved the sayings that "There is no love without pain" which is really the truth.  You can't have one without the other.  I will deff be checking out the author other books.  He writes with such passion that you just have to read every word (excluding the cat) Devouring the story until it finally releases you at the last page.  

"All opinions are 100% honest and my own."

You can also see what the Washington Post Had to say about this amazing read

CLICK HERE

“A writer who picks up his readers by the scruff of the neck and won’t let go.”
—Chicago Tribune

“L’Heureux’s efforts to weave myth., extremity, and a religious note into [various] settings are high risk. The result is powerful and original.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review“A deeply ambitious novelist, one who isn’t afraid of dealing with dark themes and what it means to be fully human, especially in the frightening and ecstatic world we create behind the darkened bedroom walls.”
—New York Times Book Review

"A novel bursting with love -- collegial, artistic and erotic. John L'Heureux brings to life the bliss and treachery of the Italian Renaissance through prose as passionate as his characters. Deeply enjoyable, THE MEDICI BOY soars like an operatic aria, before breaking our hearts."
—David Henry Hwang, Toby and Obie award winning playwright, of M. Butterfly, FOB, The Dance and The Railroad

"Lust, envy, greed.  Pride.  Wrath.  Set John L’Heureux loose in 15th-century Florence; give him Donatello, Cosimo de Medici, a royal flush of deadly sins, and a boy too handsome for his own good, and watch a master at work, and at play.  There is no time and no place and no human transaction that L’Heureux can’t plunder to assemble the kind of novel his fans expect, and his fans-to-be have never before encountered.  Luminous, intelligent, funny, shocking, and, yes: revelatory."
—Kathryn Harrison, New York Times Bestselling Author, ENVY, THE SEAL WIFE,  THE BINDING CHAIR

Disclaimer: Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information.

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Posted in: 5 Stars, Adult, Review