Allison Levy holds a PhD in Italian Renaissance art and architecture from Bryn Mawr College. She has published five books on Italian visual culture, and has taught in the US, Italy, and the UK. She oversees the digital publishing program at Brown University.
I wrote...
House of Secrets: The Many Lives of a Florentine Palazzo
House of Secrets tells the remarkable story of Palazzo Rucellai from behind its celebrated façade. The house, beginning with its piecemeal assemblage by one of the richest men in Florence in the fifteenth century, has witnessed endless drama, from the butchering of its interior to a courtyard suicide to champagne-fueled orgies on the eve of World War I to a recent murder on its third floor. When the author, an art historian, serendipitously discovers a room for let in the house, she lands in the vortex of history and is tested at every turn—inside the house and out.
Her residency in Palazzo Rucellai is informed as much by the sense of desire giving way to disappointment as by a sense of denial that soon enough must succumb to the truth. House of Secrets is about the sharing of space, the tracing of footsteps, the overlapping of lives. It is about the willingness to lose oneself behind the façade, to live between past and present, to slip between the cracks of history and the crevices of our own imagination.
A magnificent and meticulous literary account of the architecture—or, rather, labyrinth—of imagination and memory, this tortured tale of mis-seeing and misunderstanding, of repercussions and regrets, is centered on the events of summer 1935, when a precocious 13-year-old, Briony Tallis, witnesses—and misconstrues—encounters between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. Most notably, the locations where these encounters take place—a fountain on the estate, the library, the grand manor itself—suggest the complicated ways in which we perceive our own and others’ identities within and against houses.
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a…
This #1 New York Times bestseller grapples with what houses say about who we are—or want to become. Slip into a tragic entanglement between Massoud Behrani, a recent immigrant from Iran intent on restoring his family’s honor by purchasing a California bungalow up for auction, and Kathy Nicolo, the house’s owner, and a recovering drug addict determined to hold on to her family property. This penetrating novel will satisfy readers’ unquenchable thirst for stories that explore the psychological ramifications of emotional and social overinvestment in the promise of a house.
A recent immigrant from the Middle East-a former colonel in the Iranian Air Force-yearns to restore his family's dignity in California. A recovering alcoholic and addict down on her luck struggles to hold onto the one thing she has left?her home. And her lover, a married cop, is driven to extremes to win her love.
Andre Dubus III's unforgettable characters-people with ordinary flaws, looking for a small piece of ground to stand on-careen toward inevitable conflict. Their tragedy paints a shockingly true picture of the country we live in today.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize, this poignant historical novel probes social, political, and architectural structures—as rigid as they are vulnerable—in early-to-mid 20th-century Britain. The protagonist, Stevens, is a devoted butler at Darlington Hall, a stately home newly acquired by a wealthy American named Mr. Farraday. In 1956, Stevens pays a visit to the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, during which he reminisces about events at Darlington Hall in the 1920s and 1930s. This engrossing story—on purpose and on place—elegantly captures the decline of the British aristocracy, the role of memory, and the tensions of disillusionment.
*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available to preorder*
The Remains of the Day won the 1989 Booker Prize and cemented Kazuo Ishiguro's place as one of the world's greatest writers. David Lodge, chairman of the judges in 1989, said, it's "a cunningly structured and beautifully paced performance". This is a haunting evocation of lost causes and lost love, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change. Ishiguro's work has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
Stevens, the long-serving butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on…
Set in 19th-century Sicily, this luscious novel reveals the fragility of foundations—of self, of class, of kingdom. The story focuses on the decadent and decaying Italian aristocracy amidst the political upheavals of the 1860s. The main protagonists are the Salina family, above all the patriarch Don Fabrizio, who must accept change if things are to remain the same. A central theme is demise and the fading of beauty, sublimely rendered in rich language that details the scents, colors, and textures of a crumbling family seat.
The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.
'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it' Rick Stein
In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.
A monumental portrait of time and place, this seductive novel transports readers deep inside the private world of the English nobility in the waning days of a gilded age of power and privilege. From the 1920s to the early 1940s, we follow in the footsteps of protagonist Charles Ryder as he becomes infatuated with the wealthy Marchmain family, forging complicated friendships with siblings Sebastian and Julia Flyte. Against the backdrop of Brideshead Castle, a singular story of love and loss—and of salvaging who and/or what remains among the ruins—plays out most provocatively.
It is WW2 and Captain Charles Ryder reflects on his time at Oxford during the twenties and a world now changed. As a lonely student Charles was captivated by the outrageous and decadent Sebastian Flyte and invited to spend time at the Flyte's family home - the magnificent Brideshead. Here Charles becomes infatuated by its eccentric, aristocratic inhabitants, and in particular with Julia, Sebastian's startling and remote sister. But as his own spiritual and social distance becomes marked, Charles discovers a crueller world, where duty and desire, faith and happiness can only ever conflict.
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror of the past four years. Only, all of her plans are thrown into disarray when her secret lover returns and starts asking questions she can’t answer without disaster following.
Bryce Day comes home to Alabama after he’s discharged from the First Alabama Cavalry USA with guilt weighing on his heart. His neighbors won’t cotton to his Unionist bent, and the woman of his heart likely won’t give him a second chance after his silence during the war. Only, she’s hiding something from him.
How can they have any hope of a loving life together with lies and secrets between them?
One terrible lie, a desperate measure to save her past, just might destroy her future…
Award-winning author of historical fiction presents a new novel of love and lies, secrets and sensuality, and the hands of fate weaving it all together.
The American Civil War is finally over and Christmas beckons. Magnolia Merryweather, backyard horse breeder, is eager to celebrate for the first time since the war began even as she continues to grow her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after all the terror of the past four years. She’s preparing to follow in her mother’s matriarchal footsteps,…
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