Olivia Laing for The Silver Book
Tuesday 16th June, 7pm
Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath, York Street, Bath, Somerset BA1 1NG
6.30pm
7pm
'Sublime' The New York Times
Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They're the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times #1 bestseller The Garden Against Time. They join us to celebrate the paperback release of The Silver Book.
It is September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini's Casanova. A young - and beautiful - apprentice is just what he needs.
He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of Cinecitta, the studio where Casanova's Venice will be ingeniously assembled. Then in the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Salo, Pasolini's horrifying fable of fascism.
But Nicholas has a secret and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy's 'Years of Lead', he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn't intend . . .