Product Description
All his life, Giovanni Bernini has possessed an uncanny gift: he can imitate anyone he meets. Honed by his mother at a young age, the talent catapults him from small-town obscurity to stardom.
As Giovanni describes it, "No one's disguise is perfect. There is in every person, no matter how graceful, a seam, a thread curling out of them ... When pulled by the right hands, it will unravel the person entire." As his fame grows, Giovanni encounters a beautiful and enigmatic stage singer, Lucy Starlight -the only person whose thread he cannot find - and becomes increasingly trapped inside his many poses. Ultimately, he must assume the one identity he has never been able to master: his own.
In the vein of Jonathan Lethem's and Kevin Wilson's playful surrealism, Jacob Rubin's The Poser is the debut of a major literary voice, a masterfully written, deeply original comic novel, and the moving story of a man who must risk everything for the chance to save his life and know true love.
As Giovanni describes it, "No one's disguise is perfect. There is in every person, no matter how graceful, a seam, a thread curling out of them ... When pulled by the right hands, it will unravel the person entire." As his fame grows, Giovanni encounters a beautiful and enigmatic stage singer, Lucy Starlight -the only person whose thread he cannot find - and becomes increasingly trapped inside his many poses. Ultimately, he must assume the one identity he has never been able to master: his own.
In the vein of Jonathan Lethem's and Kevin Wilson's playful surrealism, Jacob Rubin's The Poser is the debut of a major literary voice, a masterfully written, deeply original comic novel, and the moving story of a man who must risk everything for the chance to save his life and know true love.
Reviews/Praise
"I yawped - because when you read a book as exquisite as The Poser, you yawp. Have you ever met a character like Giovanni Bernini? My heart breaks even now. With astonishing control, Mr. Rubin has created the perfect comic noir tragedy of mimicry and betrayal, of great love and greater loss. Bernini is one of fiction's great ciphers and his parallel universe is such a good imitation of our universe I can no longer distinguish which is which. This is a novel that will be loved and admired for years to come." -Reif Larsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and I Am Radar
"Jacob Rubin's The Poser is a tour de force of voice, a genius act of ventriloquism, a terrific novel. From the opening you'll be hooked, as I was, and you'll love it all the way through." -Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter