Review: The Night Villa

Goodman sends a group of libidinous academics to Italy to recover and decipher (using new technology) ancient texts buried and burned in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The scroll turns out to be the journal of Roman traveler Phineas Aulus, a notable writer, manuscript collector, gossip and dirty old man. The modern and ancient stories unfold in rough parallel, both involving secretive cults, conspiracy, betrayal and plenty of sex.

Goodman’s primary narrator, however, is not the dirty old man, but attractive and erudite classics professor Sophie Chase who blames herself for the deaths of two colleagues, shot during a campus rampage. The killer was the deranged ex-boyfriend of Sophie’s student and protégé, Agnes Hancock, and Sophie feels she ignored important warning signs.

Wounded herself, and missing half a lung, Sophie succumbs to pneumonia after reaching Italy. Some of the book’s best passages are the half hallucinatory vortex of modern guilt, ancient setting, legendary portents and contemporary menace that overwhelm her mind as fever rises.

Awakening on Capri in the Villa della Notte – a replica of the elegant Herculaneum villa where the scrolls were discovered during an ongoing excavation – Sophie quickly falls under the spell of the ancients, especially young Iusta, a girl unjustly enslaved and destined to join Phineas in upcoming secret rituals. Sophie had long been interested in Iusta who fought her enslavement in court, but lost. Nothing more had been heard of her until the discovery of Phineas’ journal.

As Sophie explores the new villa and the ruined one, Iusta’s story unfolds against the background of the grumbling, belching Vesuvius and imminent sacred rites. Meanwhile Sophie’s old lover – a man who deserted her to join a cult dedicated to Pythagoras – turns up on an elegant sail boat and the lovely young Agnes looks likely to fall for the charms of the project’s lead professor (and an old lover of Sophie’s), Elgin Lawrence.

Conspiracy and superstition weave an intricate pattern undermined by the adolescent squabbling and sexual tensions among the modern academics. While it’s true there are few things more irrational than insular hormonal academics, Goodman fails to convince.

The book succeeds best when exploring the crumbling ruins and echoing the ancient past in the shadowy corners of the modern replica. Goodman (“The Sonnet Lover,” “The Lake of Dead Languages”) recreates the terror and uncertainty of the Vesuvius eruption with atmospheric imagery while the modern-day climax feels forced. Still, there’s plenty to like in a story that combines literary sensibilities with romantic thrills.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett

Please Note: Books reviewed are usually provided by the publisher, author, or an agent. Reviewers usually get to keep the book.

Book Review: The Night Villa

Please Note: Books reviewed are usually provided by the publisher, author, or an agent. Reviewers usually get to keep the book.