It is 1811 and Napoleon’s empire now incorporates almost the entire Italian peninsula. Two French travellers meet on the road to Milan – a brash young man, bored with his official career, and a shy, secretive woman, desperate to escape the narrow confines of provincial life, braving the journey alone. Both are drawn by Italy’s classical and artistic heritage, but the Italy they encounter is a country in the ferment of social and political change. Opened to new ways of seeing by their Italian experiences, both travellers glimpse the possibility of a different life. But can individuals determine their future when the course of history is about to change?
Based on episodes in the youth of the French writer Henri Beyle (Stendhal), A Promise on the Horizon uses his Italian diary as frame, interweaving it with fictional events and characters to evoke this pivotal moment in history.
With what precision and intimacy Ann Pearson explores her chosen era, its nuances, fevers, cherished fantasies and bitter truths ! Napoleonic Europe comes alive through its most distinctive voice, that of Stendhal himself, whose perspective gives the story a vividness both fierce and touching. I so enjoyed the narrative’s resistless pace and structural originality. Refashioning the past in the form of episodes which ought to have happened, or almost did, is clearly Pearson’s special skill, one which Monsieur Beyle himself would admire.Jonathan KeatesBiographer of Stendhal, Handel and Purcell, author of two works of fiction set in Italy (The Strangers’ Gallery and Allegro Postillions which won the Hawthornden and the James Tait Black Memorial prizes), and of many books on Italian history and culture, including The Siege of Venice. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
ISBN (print): 9781989467022
eBook: 9781989467039
Size: 6 x 9 inches
Type: Softcover
Price: $24.95
Publisher: Granville Island Publishing
Edition: 1st
FIC014000 FICTION / Historical / General
FIC 019000 FICTION / Literary
FIC 041000 FICTION / Biographical