Books with title The Marble Faun

Nathaniel Hawthorne is easily one of America's most famous novelists, with works like The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables standard fare for American classrooms. The Marble Faun is unique because Hawthorne stepped outside of the typical Puritanical New England setting and set this romance novel in Italy, replete with allegorical fables and Gothic themes. While reviews were mixed in his lifetime, some recognized it as masterful, and it continues to be popular today.

Hawthorne's classic "international novel" showcases the durability of life and art, chronicling the adventures of a group of American expatriates in Italy. Befriended by the handsome Donatello, who possesses all of the grace of a marble statue of a faun, the Americans find themselves swept up in events beyond their reason and expectations. Italy and Rome become characters in this witty and symbolic romance, drawing on art, literature, and the Fall from Grace as its themes. Hawthorne's last completed romance; he believed it to be his finest work. last novel, which he thought to be his best.

Joe Gunther, a Brattleboro, Vermont, cop, is the head of the new VermontBureau of Investigation (VBI), a joint task force charged with statewideresponsibility for major crimes. In The Marble Mask, the VBI's first casetakes the force north to Stowe, where a 50-year-old corpse has turned up in acrevasse on Mt. Mansfield. Some of the more interesting minor characters inauthor Archer Mayor's long-running series about the amiable elder sleuth makereturn appearances here as Joe's teammates--like one-armed Willy, a former wife-beater who's now playing footsie with Sammie Martens, one of Joe's favoritecolleagues. When the frozen stiff turns out to be a (formerly) big-time Canadiancrime boss named Jean Deschamps, who disappeared after World War II, Joe and hisgang cross the border to work with the Mounties, the S++ret+¬, and the local copsin Sherbrooke, where Deschamps's son Marcel is involved in a turf war with theHell's Angels and a rival gang of thugs. Old secrets and intrigues come tolight while an intricate plan to frame a dying man for a crime half a centuryold forms an interesting puzzle that's not fully revealed until the last coupleof pages. Mayor excels at painting a picture of a time and place that's as authentic asmaple syrup, and in Joe he's created a Cooperesque character who's almost asenigmatic as the mist-shrouded mountains of his beloved state. Skiers who'veschussed down Stowe's fabled slopes will enjoy Mayor's recreation of the town inits bygone era as well as the description of its renaissance as a majortourist attraction today. Joe doesn't change much from book to book, but that'sfine with Mayor's fans. He's a good cop, a quiet hero, a reliable guy, and his11th appearance in this tightly woven mystery is cause for cheer. --JaneAdams

Alfred Jackson is a sad little African-American boy, growing up in the decade after the end of World War II. He is small for his age, with poor vision and glasses, and he has lost his father in the Battle of the Bulge, at Bastogne, an unrecognized hero of the conflict. Alfred is always the last to be picked for any team sports, and some of the older boys bully and tease him, calling him names of racial hatred. He has one talent where he is clearly superior; he is an accomplished marble player, a sport where his size and his glasses do not matter. He wants to enter a city-wide marble tournament, but he is afraid that the bullies will harass him and he will fail. A kind older man who is a neighbor and a friend of Alfred's finds out what is wrong, and he intervenes by giving him his favorite "shooter," a magic marble that will help Allred to win. What happens next is the rest of the story.