Uncle Rudolf: A Novel - Hardcover

Bailey, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312318340 ISBN 13: 9780312318345

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2004

Synopsis

In Uncle Rudolf, two-time Booker-Prize finalist Paul Bailey has crafted an exquisite, profoundly moving portrayal of a charismatic and popular performer in World War II-era Europe, and the orphaned nephew he takes under his wing.

Seventy-year-old man Andre reflects back on his life, beginning with his Jewish childhood in Romania on the eve of World War II. Andre's father, in a desperate effort to save him from the coming holocaust, hands him over to his captivating uncle Rudolf, an internationally famous singer of popular operettas. Rudolf is a sublimely gifted lyric tenor, a dashing leading man who is the object of many women's affections-but also an artist who lives in the shadow of his own unachieved potential as an opera star. Rudolf takes the boy to back to London, renames him Andrew, turns all his attention and sardonic humor upon him, and gradually sculpts him into a gentleman.

Vivid, often lighthearted scenes of Andrew's worldly life with Rudolf are intertwined with the unfolding secrets of his forgotten past as Andre, which have shadowed his otherwise happy life. Told in matchless prose, Uncle Rudolf captures in fine detail the mood of 1940s Europe--and reveals the emotions of a man whose achievement falls short of his brilliant promise. It is a wise, knowing, elegant story about the sacrifices we make for those we love.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Bailey is the author of seven previous novels, including the critically acclaimed Kitty & Virgil; At the Jerusalem, which won the Somerset Maugham award; Peter Smart's Confessions and Gabriel's Lament, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lives in London.

From the Inside Flap

Advance praise for Uncle Rudolf:
"An exceptionally tender and vivid account of a little boy's expulsion from his own country and language. Tremendous."--Beryl Bainbridge, author of Master Georgie and Birthday Boys

"I read it in one sitting and think it echoing and beautiful; so graciously pitched, perfectly poised, balanced on its hair-breadth between grief and delight. It moved me terribly. I loved it." --Ali Smith, author of Hotel World and Free Love

"Andrew himself is an appealing narrator: honest, troubled, perceptive. It is the clarity of his vision that gives the novel its crisp and satisfying accuracy, and makes it one of Paul Bailey's best books." --Penelope Lively, author of The Photograph

Praise for Paul Bailey's previous book, Kitty & Virgil:

"Crackles with repartee and literary allusion...Compelling. "
--The Washington Post Book World

"Luminous... told with empathy, elegance, and unfailing delight in language."--Publishers Weekly

Reviews

Part exile's lament and part psychological study, this brief novel by Bailey (Kitty & Virgil, etc.) explores the complicated, intense relationship between a Romanian lyric tenor and his adoring nephew during the years preceding and following WWII. Andrew Petrescu (later Peters) is seven in 1937 when his father-a Romanian debt collector who marries a woman with Jewish blood-finds the situation in Romania increasingly precarious and sends Andrew to live in England with his superbly talented Uncle Rudolf. Introducing Andrew to his freewheeling artistic world, Rudolf becomes the boy's de facto parent, adviser and mentor. The narrative then flashes back to Rudolf's musical education and his lucrative decision to sing commercially popular operettas, a choice that proves costly on a personal level when Rudolf regrets not pursuing a career in serious opera. As Andrew grows up, he becomes increasingly dependent on his uncle, to the extent that his brief marriage fails and he finds himself living vicariously through Rudolf's successes and failures. Bailey's unflinching depiction of Andrew's obsessive, nearly pathological love for his uncle is alternately moving and disturbing, and his gradual revelation of the fate of Andrew's parents adds an element of suspense to the story. The flamboyance of London theater life contrasts strikingly with the melancholia of exile and the horrors of war as Bailey plays masterfully with chiaroscuro in this moody, unsentimental novel.
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*Starred Review* In February 1937, his father took little Andrei Petrescu from their small Romanian town to Paris, where he put the boy on the first leg of the trip to London. There Rudolf, his father's brother, met him, told him he would henceforth be Andrew Peters, and introduced him to the lifestyle of a wealthy celebrity, for his handsome uncle is a matinee-idol tenor whose forte is that bourgeois middle European theatrical confection, operetta. Andrei is supposedly visiting until his parents call him home, but he never sees them again, and Uncle Rudolf doesn't tell him the whole truth of his situation until he is 18. He grows up in the best circumstances, and Rudolf is devoted to him, but Andrew, though he fathers a son from a marriage that barely outlives the pregnancy, never really leaves the avuncular nest. Moreover, Rudolf thinks himself a failure; he should have sung Mozart and Verdi, not the genre he considers central to the early-twentieth-century's long nationalist nightmare. Seventy and afraid he is becoming senile and incapable of writing Rudolf's biography, Andrew recollects his uncle's and his ever-quieter, intertwined lives. Bailey writes economically, plangently, and with deep cultural penetration, memorably incorporating historic musical figures into Rudolf's story and leaving readers to interpret just what the novel might be saying about anti-Semitism. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312318340
• ISBN 13: 9780312318345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192