An American opera singer travels to Naples and becomes embroiled in his strangest role yet Michael Ruane is an obscure American opera singer who arrives in Naples to play a small part in an important production of Tosca and star in his own staging of a little-known Benjamin Britten opera. The work comes at a particularly trying time, when he's still raw with grief after his New York lover's death from AIDS. As the productions get under way, Ruane is offered an unusual part: that of the "uncle from Rome" at a local wedding. According to tradition, the presence of the uncle from Rome at important events confers prestige on the family. However, Ruane is soon enmeshed in a drama that surpasses any role he has played on the stage. The Uncle from Rome is a brilliant and colorfully imagined novel filled with theatrics of operatic proportions.
"A novel with such brio that it could be the basis for a half-comedic, half-tragic grand opera. . . . Bravo, Uncle!"
The New York Times
"Shrewd and splendid . . . The finale is nothing short of extraordinary."
Publishers Weekly
"A surprising amalgam of the tragic and the comic, the bizarre and the everyday; a novel, in short, like Naples, with all the virtues of grand, grand opera . . . splendidly entertaining."
