The silver book A novel

Laing, who's written nonfiction about the lives of artists and one previous novel, Crudo, fuses the two forms with a lush narrative of art and love in 1970s Italy. The story unfolds over the year leading up to poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini's murder in 1975, and its main character is Nicholas Wade, a young English artist who leaves London in September 1974 for Venice, fleeing unspecified trouble after a torrid affair with another man. Nicholas is sketching on the steps of San Vidal church when he meets costume designer and special effects artist Danilo Donati. Their one-night stand yields a yearlong apprenticeship for Nicholas, during which they work on two film productions, Federico Fellini's Casanova and Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò. In the Rome studio and on location in the countryside, Donati teaches Nicholas how to make fake snow and excrement, and they fashion "sinister, peeling buildings" into sites of a Nazi massacre. Describing the often grotesque material, Danilo proclaims: "We're not perverts, we're labourers in the dream factory!" As the mystery of what happened in London finally comes to light, trouble comes for Pasolini as well. It's an intriguing plot, but most notable is Laing's lucid showcasing of the artists' fervent yet tender collaborations, born of a shared "love of liberty" and the "amusement rising" in a lover's eyes. The author's fans will adore this. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Nov.)

Erotic romance, moviemaking audacity, and looming dread co-exist in this arresting fact-based novel set in Italy's hazardous 1970s. In the autumn of 1974, Nicholas Wade, a 22-year-old art student, needs to bolt his London digs hurriedly enough to ensure that he can be safely removed from "possible questions, speculation." (About what isn't said.) Nicholas crosses the English Channel and ends up in Venice, where he arouses the erotic interest of Danilo Donati, the celebrated costumer and production designer best known for his work with superstar directors Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini. As it happens, Danilo is now working with both these eccentric and willful filmmakers on separate but equally incendiary projects: Fellini's opulent biopic of Casanova and Pasolini's graphic account of fascist sadism during World War II,Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Almost immediately after taking Nicholas as a lover, Danilo designates him as "my apprentice" and together they head for Rome and the fabled Cinecittà studios, where Nicholas meets the volatile, luminous Fellini and wins over the maestro and veteran craft workers with his drawings and designs. When the Casanova project stalls, Nicholas and Danilo travel to Mantua where Pasolini is working onSalò. In contrast with the boisterous, effusive Fellini, the way Pasolini speaks "is hypnotic: both his soft, whispery voice and the apocalyptic things he says." One could say similar things about the spectral mood and tone pervading Laing's novel, rife with sensuality, illuminating archival details about the Italian film industry, and disquieting intimations about the growing social and political unrest that in only a few years would grow in terror and bloodshed, forever marking the decade as the country's Years of Lead. Pasolini's brutal murder, the climactic tragedy that closes this saga, may well have been the first manifestation of such "lead," though Laing's command of suggestion and subtlety allows readers to make their own inferences. A mesmerizing, contemplative, and haunting work of historical fiction. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.