The Relentless Weekly Wrap-Up 09/07/14

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 19 Comments

Hellllooooo! It’s been a while since I’ve done a weekly wrap-up (or any kind of wrap-up) and I’m so glad to be back.
Not to get all dramatic but…did you miss me???
On the Blog:
At the end of July I reviewed Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman
I reviewed the lovely Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen this past week
On Friday I joined the 30 Authors in 30 Days movement with a great piece by the author David Vann, be sure to check it out! Don’t forget to follow along on Twitter with the #30Authors hashtag.
Read:
The last time I did an update of what I’ve been reading it was to wrap-up the month of June. (Way to stay on the ball, Jen!) Not only was this summer the summer of almost no books it was also the summer of no blogging. I’ll just let you know the last few books I read, cool? Cool. 
I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe
The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Currently Reading:
The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar
I’m very much enjoying this book even if I’m not finding the time to really dig in. I need some sort of reading only vacation. By myself. 
Upcoming:
I have my eyes on Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer. I’ve heard it’s a tear jerking read and I’m a total sucker for those. 
Around the Blogosphere: 
I’m not alone in slumpville! Kim, at Sophisticated Dorkiness, talks about her reading/blogging slump here. 
Want to know what to pick up in paperback this month? Shannon has you covered! Check out the great list on River City Reading.
I’ve been hearing great things about Madame Picasso by Anne Girard. My pal Jennifer is giving away a copy at Book-Alicious Mama. Good luck!
In My Neck of the Woods:
We had a nasty hail storm here on Thursday morning. Dimples are cute on cheeks but not all over my car. Know what’s less cute? The big ol’ cracks in the windshield. Hello? Insurance company? Let’s get this claim started. But hey, it’s just a car. No one was hurt and all is well.
The last weeks of summer were crazy, ya’ll! We spent time at my mom’s cabin, I went to a Packer game in Green Bay, and I spent Labor Day weekend in Chicago with my youngest. I spent more time in a car than I would like but what a way to spend the last few days of semi-freedom. Great times. (You’ve seem some of my adventures if you follow me on Instagram.)
The kidlets have started another year of school. The boy is a JUNIOR and the girl is a FRESHMAN and I guess that means I’m an old lady? (Not to mention the elder girl being all in her early 20s and really making me feel ancient.) I’ve started another semester of University of Wisconsin Online. Wish me luck!
It’s been so long since I’ve chatted with you and I feel like I could yap forever. But I’ll shut my trap now. What were your last weeks of summer like? What do you have coming up? What’s going on in your neck of the woods? Tell me in the comments!
I really did. Sniffle.

30 Authors in 30 Days: David Vann on John L’Heureux

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 7 Comments



30 Authors in 30 Days is a first of its kind event aimed at connecting readers, bloggers, and authors. Hosted by The Book Wheel, this month-long event takes place during September and features 30 authors discussing their favorite recent reads on 30 different blogs. There are also some great prizes provided by GoneReading.com and BookJigs. (See giveaway here)

For the full schedule of participating authors and bloggers, visit The Book Wheel or join the Facebook group. You can also follow along on Twitter with the #30Authors hashtag!

I’m so pleased to be part of this event. I’m doubly pleased to host the author David Vann here on The Relentless Reader. Enjoy!



Author David Vann on The Medici Boy by John L’Heureux


John L’Heureux is certainly one of America’s greatest living writers. Now he’s published his first novel in 10 years, The Medici Boy, and it’s a masterpiece, the most ambitious, beautiful and complex novel I’ve read this year.  In all of L’Heureux’s work we encounter a ferocity of characterisation to match the stories of Flannery O’Connor but also a different generosity, a look at what makes an artist, a look at redemption through art, and this is what The Medici Boy brings to fruition.

Luca di Matteo, our narrator, is a failed friar who becomes assistant to the great artist Donatello in 15th-century Florence. He witnesses the creation of the sublime in the tricky art of bronze casting, a process that begins with the construction of a frame, followed by a wax sculpture that is covered in clay, dried and fired and then poured with bronze where the melted wax once was. The scenes of this delicate procedure are unforgettable, but even better is the portrait of Donatello, in all his calm and frightening intensity, hard discipline, thunderous rages and, most importantly, his tortured love for young Agnolo, the 16-year-old boy who serves as model and inspiration for Donatello’s bronze “David”. The groundbreaking sculpture was the first full-sized nude bronze for 1,000 years and a remarkable departure from an earlier marble “David” by Donatello. In L’Heureux’s reimagining, it is Agnolo’s impish, bragging and maddening tease that is captured in Donatello’s greatest work – an artist’s suffering over the love of his life.

The Medici Boy is a great historical novel which creates a visceral sense of time and place and risk. L’Heureux spent a year in Florence on a Guggenheim fellowship researching, and he manages to capture a unique moment in which politics, art, religion and sexuality collide.

The spiritual debate here about sin and fate feels fresh and edgy, and refuses to be resolved. Our narrator sets out as a friar but is drawn to sex with prostitutes and ends up marrying one of them. He feels ambivalent about his gay son and is eventually imprisoned in a monastery by his other son; he never fully understands or forgives one, and is never fully understood or forgiven by the other.

There is a tremendous cohesion in this novel – even the minor characters are important, and each part of the story reflects on every other. We are presented with a portrayal of real art mired in real life: Donatello interrupted by one of Agnolo’s tantrums; jealousy and betrayal derailing other works; commissions as political threats; the church willing to sacrifice those who are forging its doors and carving its faces in marble.

What makes the book feel so dangerous is that everyone is out of control, acting unconsciously. They think they know their reasons, but they don’t, and they discover the truth too late. This is great tragedy, and the hallmark of all of L’Heureux’s work. Reading The Medici Boy, you will become caught up in sex and murder, betrayal and political upheaval, love and desire and the ferocious creation of the beautiful in sculpture, but you’ll also catch a glimpse of the place that art and religion point to within us, our finer, quieter makings.

About the Author:
Published in 19 languages, David Vann’s internationally-bestselling books have won 15 prizes, including best foreign novel in France and Spain and, most recently, the $50,000 St. Francis College Literary Prize 2013, and appeared on 70 Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, Elle UK, Esquire UK, Esquire Russia, National Geographic Adventure, Writer’s Digest, McSweeney’s, and other magazines and newspapers. A former Guggenheim fellow, National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Wallace Stegner fellow, and John L’Heureux fellow, he is currently a Professor at the University of Warwick in England and Honorary Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in France.

You can find David’s books on Goodreads and Amazon.

For more information on The Medici Boy, check out the book on Goodreads or Amazon.  John L’Heureux can also be found on Facebook.