The Detour
Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
The Detour:
“As Nazi Germany passes from living memory, novels that allow the reader to travel its ethical landscape are increasingly important. Andromeda Romano-Lax has a fine feel for moments of clarity that are recognized only in hindsight, when chance and personal defects—moral and physical—combine to produce heroism, or mediocrity, or cowardice. A convincing novel, beautifully written.”
—Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of
The Sparrow
and
A Thread of Grace
“A suspenseful tale of artistic ideals, culture and power, complex family bonds, and redemptive love with one of the most finely crafted narratives I’ve ever read. It’s certain to earn Andromeda Romano-Lax a new level of readership. Vivid and heartbreaking, set against a shameful time in world history, Lax celebrates the resilience of the human condition, and its ability to heal against all odds.”
—Jo-Ann Mapson, author of
Solomon’s Oak
“A wonderfully evocative and lyrical novel—a coming-of-age story woven into an adventure of art-smuggling under the Nazis. Romano-Lax brilliantly depicts a triumph over the seductive dangers of passivity when faced by love, art and the moral choices of life. A gemstone of a book!”
—Simon Goldhill, author of
Jerusalem
“Both a thriller and a poetic journey of a young art specialist and an ancient statue through the deceits and dangers of the Third Reich. Plunging into crazy adventures in a truck on the back roads of Italy and fleeing long-buried memories, Ernst seeks the safe delivery of the statue and in the process discovers loyalty, love, and his own soul. Andromeda Romano-Lax is a unique and wonderfully gifted writer.”
—Stephanie Cowell, author of
Claude & Camille
“Swept up in the intrigue and humor, adventure and tragedy of
The Detour
, a reader might overlook the deep understanding of history and art imparted by author Andromeda Romano-Lax. Set in 1938 Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, the novel does what only literature can do, allowing us to experience moral complexity and struggle through a single beating heart. As Ernst Vogler travels across Italy to bring a famous marble sculpture home to Hitler, you will ride along with him through small villages and fields of sunflowers, through violence and love, through history in the making. And when you arrive at the end, you—like Ernst—will have been changed by the journey.”
—Eowyn Ivey, author of
The Snow Child
“With elegance and an eye for the unexpected, Ms. Romano-Lax distills the often overwhelming anguish of World War II into this elegiac tale of an earnest young art curator’s journey into Italy, where he finds himself caught between his reverence for the past and the horrors of the future. An evocative portrait of one man’s passage into maturity and the resiliency of the human spirit, even in midst of the unimaginable.”
—C.W. Gortner, author of
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici
“A marvelous adventure across landscapes both inner and outer,
The Detour
is a moving study in art and memory, history and geography, courage and compassion and every kind of love. Beautifully executed, deeply felt, and crammed with what feels for all the world like reality itself, it’s a rare and valuable book indeed.”
—Jon Clinch, author of
Finn
and
Kings of the Earth
“A poignant and important historical drama, as well as part road trip and compelling adventure,
The Detour
defies our expectations on every page. Andromeda Romano-Lax is a powerful and moving storyteller.”
—Jennifer Gilmore, author of
Something Red
“It’s 1938, and already the Sonderprojekt is at work, bringing the great art of Europe to Germany for the Fuhrer. Young Ernst Vogler, reeling from the news that his mentor has been marched off in the night, is sent to Rome to collect a valuable statue, the
Discus Thrower
. He expects to head straight for the border, but Italian escorts Cosimo and Enzo have other ideas, taking him on a wild ride that sets quirky and lively humanity against the grinding, impersonal forces of war, history, and power.… The book is no (inappropriately) jolly picaresque; Romano-Lax, author of the well-received
The Spanish Bow
, keeps the palette just dark enough to remind us of the terror that is there and the terror that’s to come. Nicely paced, brisk with dialogue, and lyric at the right moment, this would be great for book clubs.”
—
Library Journal
Praise for
The Spanish Bow
“An impressive and richly atmospheric debut.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
(a
New York Times
Editors’ Choice)
“Time and setting, character and plot come together in this exceptionally appealing first novel about a master cellist and his complicated relationship with the country of his birth and the poisoned times in which he performs. Readers will be captivated by this delightful book, loosely inspired by the life of the great cellist Pablo Casals.”
—
Library Journal
(starred review)
“This riveting historical page-turner moves inexorably toward a heartrending crescendo.”
—
Booklist
“For sheer scope and ambition, this is a tough debut to beat.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Extraordinary, gripping.… Encounters with actual world players, like Picasso, Adolf Hitler, Franco, Kurt Weill and others, constitute a feature of this many-favored book. Another is the author’s obvious love for Spain and its colorful cities, which are unforgettably detailed.… In the end,
The Spanish Bow
suggests that fighting the manifest evil in the world can be even more damaging than tilting at windmills. And yet, and yet—there always remains the message and nobility of opposition in itself.”
—
—BookPage
“Andromeda Romano-Lax’s powerful first novel,
The Spanish Bow
, is an account of Spain during the years of 1890-1940, as experienced by a Catalan child prodigy who goes on to become court musician and then the country’s most celebrated cellist. Epic in scale it is full of richly detailed tableaux of Catalonian peasant life, bohemian Barcelona, the chaos of the Second Republic, and the rise of Francoist fascism.… [
The Spanish Bow
] excels as a portrait of a country at a painful moment in its evolution.”
—
Times Literary Supplement
(London)
“Can art save us from ourselves? In her elegant debut, Romano-Lax ponders this timeless question through the ambitious tale of Feliu Delargo, a gifted cellist born in turn-of-the-century Spain.… From the hypocrisies of the courts of Madrid to the terror of Nazi-occupied Paris, Romano-Lax weaves the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century into an elegy to the simultaneous power and impotency of art, and the contradictions of the human spirit.”
—
Historical Novels Review
“Vivid and absorbing.… Romano-Lax’s passion for music is tangible but not daunting. The characters are convincing (Delargo and Al-Cerraz are based on historical figures) and by using Feliu’s voice along with her own narration, the author can point up the shortcomings in his self-understanding. She exposes the tension among the characters with masterly subtlety.”
—
Times
(London)
“Andromeda Romano-Lax’s ambitious and atmospheric debut examines 50 years of Spanish history through the eyes of a fictional Catalan cellist, Feliu Delargo; en route she has much to say on the relationship between music and politics.”
—
Guardian
“(A) vast, inventive novel.”
—
Telegraph
“An inspired portrait of the cello virtuoso’s unique career.”
—
Elle
(France)
“Can music transcend politics or must the musician’s only true response to authoritarianism be principled silence? This question is asked throughout Andromeda Romano-Lax’s ambitious debut,
The Spanish Bow
, a sweeping memoir of a fictional Spanish cellist, Feliu Delargo. His life, from his improverished upbringing in rural Catalonia, via apprenticeships in Barcelona and Madrid, to a glittering career as a European superstar, is the thread that leads us through Spanish political and musical history in the early 20th century.”
—
Observer
“Expertly woven throughout the book are cameo appearances by Pablo Picasso, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Bertolt Brecht, and others, but it is the fictional Feliu, Justo, and Aviva who will keep you mesmerized to the last page.”
—
Christian Science Monitor
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
The Spanish Bow
Copyright © 2012 by Andromeda Romano-Lax
All rights reserved.
Published by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Romano-Lax, Andromeda, 1970–
The detour / Andromeda Romano-Lax.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-61695-050-7
1. Germans—Italy—Fiction. 2. Art—Collectors and collecting—Fiction. 3. Italy—History—1922–1945—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3618.O59D48 2012
813′.6—dc23
2011034072
v3.1
To Tziporah, Aryeh, and Brian:
fellow travelers along old Roman roads,
with love and gratitude for our time together
in Italy and Munich
“We are becoming more Greek, from day to day.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“The day of individual happiness has passed.”
Adolf Hitler
1948
PIEDMONT, NORTHERN ITALY
T
he russet bloom on the vineyards ahead, the yellow-leafed oaks, a hint of truffles fattening in moldy obscurity underfoot—none of it is truly familiar, because I first came here not only in a different season, but as a different man. Yet the smell of autumn anywhere is for me the smell of memory, and I am preoccupied as my feet guide me through the woods and fields up toward the old Piedmontese villa.