“I’m sorry to wake you, Rupert,” I said. (It occurred to me that I had never felt comfortable using his first name when I lived at the Villa Clio.)
His eyes cleared suddenly, and he leaned forward, studying my face like a text from another era, deciphering, translating. Then he rose, drawing himself up to something of his old height, seizing my wrist with two hands.
“Do you remember me, Rupert?”
He smiled, with a crooked row of tobacco-stained teeth flashing briefly. Then he let go, and sat, and I knew I had not managed to get through to him, not in any important way, and that somehow this was exactly what I should have expected.
acknowledgments
My deepest thanks to Charles Baker, Ann Beattie, Chris Bohjalian, and Ron Powers, who read this novel in some earlier version and offered suggestions. Thanks to my wife, Devon Jersild, and to Terry Karten, my editor, for their meticulous attention to my revisions. Finally, thanks to Gore Vidal for countless suggestions along the way. I should note that the translations from Rilke are my own.
About the Author
JAY PARINI grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He spent seven years in Scotland during the Vietnam era. Although his home is Vermont, where he teaches at Middlebury College, he has lived for extended periods in England and Italy. A poet, novelist, and biographer, he is married to Devon Jersild, a writer, and they have three sons.
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PRAISE FOR
The Apprentice Lover
“Parini’s perennial interest in literary biography is skillfully interwoven here with a theme that has absorbed writers since Henry James: What price does the American soul pay for European sophistication?”
—Publishers Weekly
“The Apprentice Lover…has an unpretentious charm, an appealing naïveté, coupled with an intelligence that gradually asserts itself as the narrator gains confidence…. [An] amusing book about a young writer’s coming-of-age.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Masterful prose, pacing, characterization, and ear for language.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Pleasure-filled…. Parini writes lovingly and evocatively.”
—Los Angeles Times
“[Parini] expertly navigates this multilayered narrative.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Parini knows about various ways the literary life is conducted, and he shares them with us in an entertaining manner—stylish in the best sense of the word.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Richly compelling…. Parini renders the mentor-apprentice dynamic with great sensitivity.”
—Bookreporter.com
ALSO BY JAY PARINI
Singing in Time (poems)
Theodore Roethke: An American Romantic (criticism)
The Love Run (novel)
Anthracite Country (poems)
The Patch Boys (novel)
Town Life (poems)
An Invitation to Poetry (textbook)
The Last Station (novel)
Bay of Arrows (novel)
John Steinbeck (biography)
Benjamin’s Crossing (novel)
House of Days (poems)
Robert Frost (biography)
Copyright
THE APPRENTICE LOVER. Copyright © 2002 by Jay Parini. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition March 2007 ISBN 9780061738029
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