After the fiasco that is the DaVinci Code, Matthew Pearl's murder mystery caused some wondering if separating fact from fiction would be equally as difficult with The Dante Club. Not to worry. Although set in the real locale of Boston with much attention to the authenticity of the 1800's era, and populated with real famous people (poets and publishers), Matthew Pearl's first novel makes clear in a Historical Note at the end of the book what parts are reality and what are the result of his fecund imagination. Mostly, the plot is a fantasy. Pearl used the facts that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow formed a "Dante Club" with fellow authors and their publisher to assist in the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy from its original Italian. All the rest of the events of the book are circuitously interwoven nightmares. One part gory horror, one part academic political intrigue, a heavy-handed dash of literati, spiced with excellent vintage descriptions of people, places, and daily events that depict life in post-bellum Boston. Only the women appear as paper-doll cut-outs, something that the wives of luminaries such as Lowell, Holmes, and Longfellow undoubtedly were not. Almost all the attention, and the tension, takes place between men: fathers and sons, employers and employees, comrades and competitors.
It is unusual to find such polish and finesse in the writing of a young person's first book of fiction. Pearl's academic background and scholarly pursuits are evident in the storytelling. This book would appeal to intellectuals without prurient interests (unless they find the intimate details of the lives of maggots exciting).
Matthew Pearl graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude in English and American Literature in 1997, and in 2000 from Yale Law School, where he wrote the first draft of The Dante Club. In 1998, he won the prestigious Dante Prize from the Dante Society of America for his scholarly work. He is also the editor of the new Modern Library edition of Dante’s Inferno, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He grew up in Fort Lauderdale and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Dante Club is his first novel. He can be reached via his website, which supplements the book well. It includes "lost" chapters and other material, photos, and a readers' guide with questions for discussion.
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1 - Bryce Eddings
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