Venetian Vespers

Narrated by Evelyn Dolman, a London “hack” writer/journalist at the turn of the 19th Century, this tells the story of his seemingly fortuitous recent marriage to Laura, the daughter of T. Willard Rensselaer, a wealthy American, and what happened on their wintry honeymoon in Venice.
 
Things are not going smoothly for the newlyweds. Evelyn is aware of friction between Laura and her father over some past indiscretion of hers, on which she refuses to speak.

After T. Willard had promised Evelyn the authorship of his biography, thus elevating his status in literary circles, the tycoon is killed in a riding accident and rather than bequeathing a healthy proportion of his vast wealth to Laura, the complete Rensselaer fortune goes to her sister, Thomasina, who is much disliked by Evelyn. In turn, Thomasina cancels Evelyn’s right to author the biography. It’s no wonder he is in a disillusioned and confused state of mind.
 
From the outset, Evelyn is uneasy and at odds with La Serenissima, the romantic name for Venice, finding it a dismal city suffering from a “long-drawn-out terminal decay … where over the centuries the action of the tides had eaten into the very fabric of the foundations … leaving them tattered and ragged, like the soiled and drenched hems of the petticoats of a succession of dropsical old ladies.”

​The couple rent rooms full of “fustian grandeur” in the Palazzo Dioscuri, the home of the sinister County Barbarigo. When Evelyn encounters another dubious character, Freddie Fitzherbert and his mysterious sister, Francesca, with whom he becomes besotted, he is progressively drawn into their web. What was intended to be a happy honeymoon turns into a dark journey of the soul. Laura disappears and Evelyn is left to ruminate and agonise over his actions. All of the characters are flawed and the ending has an interesting twist of sorts.
 
This random choice from my local library has provided an unusual and entertaining reading experience. It is noted that many Goodreads reviewers have derided it without perhaps taking into account how well the author has conveyed the fin de siècle flavour and atmosphere. Yes, the writing can be florid with many obscure words, but it suits the age and the setting. Venice was, and still is, to some extent, redolent of wicked events and a decadent, flowery past grandeur.
 
Evelyn is definitely not a modern man of the 2020s, he’s firmly in the grip of late Victorian values and expectations, and those other reviewers who have been outraged by what he did to Laura, have failed to step outside of our time and look on his actions as not unexpected, given how he had been duped by her father, Laura’s dishonesty and her remote attitude towards him – not to mention the lusty urges created by another femme fatale, and the inevitable effects of too many shots of grappa in the Café Florian. This is a novel to be read with an open mind.
 
Four stars
 
 
amazon.com
 
amazon.co.uk (audio)
 
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