Fabio.
He looks like a merman, a seductive creature crawling out of the sea. Fabio
Lanzoni, an Italian model, served as the inspiration for dozens of Romance
novel covers, among other gigs.
Any man who crept out of the sea and
looked at me this way would creep me out. I’d look away. Maybe even run away.
I testify: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a reader of
romance novels. But I’ve been reading about another Fabio, Fabio Montale – a
cop – and then ex-cop, the tragic hero of Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles
trilogy. I don’t know any other Fabios, so once I made this connection, I
couldn’t get it out of my head.
This week I finished the trilogy and
posted the second of three reviews as part of the Europa challenge. I’ve now more than met my original goal in the
challenge, and I’ve gotten hooked on Europas. http://europachallenge.blogspot.com
Europa editions are an international
imprint released here by Penquin USA and self-described as “works of
literary fiction, high-end mystery and noir, and narrative non-fiction from
around the world.” http://www.europaeditions.com
Fabio Montale. He lives by the sea and loves Marseilles. He sweats
pheromones and swoons whenever he looks at a woman. He bothers me. Sometimes Izzo reads like (I
imagine) a romance novel (would read). Here’s an encounter from Chourmo, the trilogy’s second book:
“All the time, my eyes were on her,
devouring her.
I was being quite brazen. But it
was more than the fact that she was beautiful. She was casting a spell over me.
I felt it in my body. It was like an electric current. Like when you’re walking
along the street and your eyes meet a woman’s, and you turn around, hoping to
see than look a second time.”
He goes on. This is pretty much Fabio’s
reaction to all the new (beautiful) women he meets. They, in turn, fall for him
or at least he reports they do.
The constant swooning is a bit tedious
and too much for my taste, but there’s a lot that I admire about the trilogy.
Other times the trilogy reads like:
a travel novel, a foodie novel, a political novel, a detective story, a
Mafia tale, a brooding essay on one
man’s ideas about love and life.
Bottom line: I’m loving reading Europa noirs for the breadth of vision they
collectively provide. My reviews are posted.
he does nothing for me at all. I think I'd run too if he appeared. good reviews on the Marseilles trilogy. they're on my list - goodness knows when i will get to them though
ReplyDeleteHaha! You make that trilogy sound really interesting. As for Fabio, he's way too beautiful for me. I like my men to be a little more "real."
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