Beautiful Ruins

By: Jess Walter

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Audie Award Nominee, Fiction and Best Solo Narration, 2013

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning 50 years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist, and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion - along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

©2012 Jess Walter (P)2012 HarperCollins Publisher

Literary Cinemascope

*Love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and to love the wrong people and die.* [Moonstruck]

The ruination of love, a promising career, a cliff-side village, innocent ideals, a culture, even a handsome youthful face, ...elements that comprise this *beautiful* novel about balancing what we want, with what is best. It is Time that moves the element of Ruin in each case: deceit, vanity, circumstance, ego, and duty--and author Walter perfectly constructs every minute of time in this brilliant book with insightfullness and finesse...my favorite Jess Walter book to date, and one of my favorite novels of the year. A cast of some of the most memorable and endearing characters to come along in a while (and there are a lot of them in this 40 year saga), including the larger-than-life tornado of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, in a rare supporting role. It is the breathtaking Italian coast that steals the show as the main character -- so perfectly drawn that I remember that sea breeze off the Amalfi and Liguaria coasts like I was there just yesterday. Liz and Dick buzz through this seaside town and these villager's lives like a wreckless speedboat, and the story develops in that ever-growing destructive wake.

This book is cinemascope in text! About as different in subject as you could get from Walter's recent The Financial Lives of Poets, but still glittering with his original and accurate voice, his knack for capturing the social zeitgeist, and his tender compassion masked so well as dark irony. Written and performed so damned well, that I thought parts were absolutely serious (it's Hollyweird...who knows?) and it took me a few minutes to remember, "this is Jess Walter...this is sarcasm, this is funny!" (outbursts of laughter followed). He describes the lecherous and oily machinations of the 60's Hollywood scene, and a particularly vile film producer that has had so many spa treatments, facial surgeries, botox injections, "cyst and growth removals," that at 72 yrs. old he looks "like a 9-yr. old Filipino girl;" this waxen-faced producer has his assistant hold "Wild Pitch Fridays", one where a hopeful screenwriter even pitches a movie about "Donner!" (complete with exclamation point and chapter entitled "Eating Human Flesh")--it is gut-busting funny. A highlight of the book was the too-brief section where Sir Richard Burton appears--a ridiculously elegant drunk womanizer--performed so well by narrator Edoardo Ballerini that I enthusiastically made everyone I came in contact with while I listened share this part.

But, high-brow chuckles aside, this is not a humorous novel--it is a love story--or at least, several love stories, with *beautiful* and poignant scenes that just resonnate in the listener. Walter creates heart warming (and heartbreaking) moments, as well as the wonderful and sincere Pasquale, one of the most lovelorn characters since Florentino from Gabriel Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera --and one of the few characters with conscience in this story, that actually even considers the theme of desire vs. duty. (A conscience imbedded in him by a dying Italian mama and the great character of his old crone aunt, a "witch" that calls women whores and puts a curse on a drunken Sir Richard.)

The last small section of the book is one of the most outstanding "wrap-ups" I've read --moving, and again, *beautiful* in every sense.

Large and sweeping, absolutely panoramic; but it is Walter's undeniable talent that aligns it all so effortlessly that it flows into a masterpiece. Ballerini as narrator: Perfezione! From his lilting Italian prose, to his remarkable Welsh drunk dialect...no one could have performed this book better. Some may find the bulk of cast and their individual stories overwhelming, or the skipping between the past and present confusing; the conversations can languish and don't always serve to move the story forward...but there was nowhere else I wanted to go, and I loved every minute of this beautiful book..

I Hated It. Until I loved It.

At first I was completely turned way off by the - what I would consider to be - trite Italian, lusting after a Hollywood starlet. And what moniker does the author dream up? "Dee"? then "Dee Moray"? What a pedestrian run-of-the-name-generator! I would have thought Jess Walter could have done something a little more baroque than "Deborah Moore" to "Dee Moray". And then...her son is named "Pat". Pat is what you do to a dog.

So, from there, I went on to dislike the un-original and overdone paper doll characters, and especially the sincere spirit with which this book seems to have been written. Where is the guy who wrote the dark and ironic "The FInancial Lives of the Poets"? Perhaps this book is an earlier work and from a less cynical period in the author's life and mind.

But, I eventually came to appreciate the message, or one of them, anyway. I am attracted by the various personae we all inhabit as time passes, and we may think someone is 25 inside when she is actually a 60-something cancer sufferer, and the inner 25-yr-old is of no interest. The casing falls apart and I lament the death of the inner spirit that attracts others just when the outer shell, the body, becomes a barrier and a hindrance. I know, this isn't one of the primary themes but it touched me anyway. It's sad that when we are in the prime of our youth, people are interested in knowing our "inner selves" but only because the outer self beckons. Once we have no outer signs advertising our abilities to connect physically and emotionally, the social environment falls away.

The book is masterfully crafted, no doubts about that. But I'm only giving it a "4" because the female point of view is explored so infrequently. Despite its wide scope, this book is about the "big playahs" doing the "big" things.

The play at the end is a brilliant touch, and actually manages to tie together many of the emotional tangents. I actually found myself crying at the play's end, and on a lighter note - I want a designer do-over like the after-party apartment in Sand Point, Idaho.

This read is well worth a credit, but it's not nearly as interesting as "The Brave" by Nicholas Evans, which deals with a similar emotional and physical geography, the Hollywood scene, and the connections that may or may not happen along the way.

Deep Insight into the Human Condition

This is one of the best books I've listened to in years. The amazing part is it didn't need thrilling suspense, a great science fiction idea (one of my weaknesses) or intense action to keep me interested. In other words my usual over sugary drink - which we all know can lead to poor health, was reduced down to a clear sparkling refreshing plain old glass of water.

This is a great story that unfolds over many eras and from different perspectives with a little dash of celebrity to add some spice.

The insights this author has into how we sometimes miscommunicate or misinterpret our reality was a joy to hear because we don't always admit to or realize those inaccuracies are a part of our life. Why is that delightful? Because it explains so much in how things don't always turn out the way we are trying to steer them and are not always the way we imagine them. (I'm thinking of how a main character was way off in her inspired interpretation of a painting left by a German Soldier.)

I was uplifted by this story and for all of those readers like me who are wary of books that don't punch with the usual thrills of zombies, vampires, aliens, murder ... (this list of some of my weaknesses can go on quite long) ... please take a chance on this book. You won't be disappointed.

Ho Hum

I can't relate to the reviewers who were so enraptured with this book. Although it held my attention through to the end, I never felt any sympathy for the characters, and the storyline seemed implausible. I did very much enjoy the narration, however. Ballerini is one the best. Overall, an easy read, but not compelling.

Better than "Poets".

This is a great listen. Jess Walter is well worth your time and "Beautiful Ruins" is a stand out.

It has its moments

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was kind of like the empty fluff that you read on an airplane because you're bored, and then you want to see how it ends, but it never really has much substance or depth and you end up feeling mediocredly satisfied at the end, but wouldn't do it again, could you go back and choose how to spend that credit

Would you ever listen to anything by Jess Walter again?

Probably not

What aspect of Edoardo Ballerini’s performance would you have changed?

he did a nice job

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

not at all

Charming story

What made the experience of listening to Beautiful Ruins the most enjoyable?

I loved the story line and the characters; Mr. Walter combined simple "old world" lives with the craziness of Hollywood and did an excellent job. All of the characters in this story seemed so honest in their perspective of their lives and I wanted to learn more about each of them from the start. I thoroughly enjoyed how the author tied the lives of the characters together and to real life.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Ruins?

There are so many memorable moments in this beautifully-written book; my most memorable are when each character realized what they had done with their lives. The author shared such intimate thoughts of all characters, but Pasquel's thoughts and recognition of everyday occurrences are especially heartwarming.

What about Edoardo Ballerini???s performance did you like?

His narration is captivating; his inflections are wonderful to hear.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

The author keeps you guessing about the characters and in that sense I wanted to keep listening, but on the other hand I didn't want the story to end.

Any additional comments?

I don't think anyone would be disappointed in this book.

Quite boring, but finishable

I don't agree with most of the reviews, I found the book to be quite boring but semi o.k.

Terrific performance by Edoardo Ballerini

A favorable review in The New York Times said Jess Walter’s new book is like a film script, but to my way of thinking it is more like Walter as a one-man performance artist, who suddenly pulls all kinds of horns, drums, bells and other props out of his bottomless pockets to illustrate a point, to make us laugh, to break into our attention and to declare: “are we entirely mad?” His work is brilliantly interpreted and performed by Edoardo Ballerini on audio, and to hear the thick and heavy tones of Richard Burton declaiming in a small outboard floating off the coast of Italy is to feel a stab of remembered joy.

Fifteen years from conception to production, this is Walter at his crazy, mad, funny, piercing best, for he skewers us and our lives by reflecting popular culture back at ourselves, but showers us with tender mercies at the end. The novel covers a time frame from the early sixties through at least the last decade, and covers at least as many personalities as years. But what a wild and happy party it is, with all the usual suspects: love, greed, envy, pride, lust, infidelity…and, I’ll say it again, finally love. “It’s a love story,” we hear as Hollywood producer Michael Deane pitches his latest to the studio executives at the end of the book. And I guess it always is, in the end, for that is all that really matters.

Take this trip, and if you have eschewed listening on audio for whatever reason, throw aside your inhibitions and do yourself a favor. This is performance art, and may be listened to with great effect. We have a nubile Hollywood actress with a bit part in an Elizabeth Taylor film, a Hollywood producer, a small Italian coastal village, a young man pitching a story…you get the idea. There is lots going on but it always with the greatest clarity that we can see that life ”isn’t always easy” and that we usually find our hapless ways despite, or perhaps because of, our questionable choices.

a good creative, imaginative story

A first time author for me, I believe I found this book when audible suggests other books you might like based on the books you've read. Very creative and imaginative, it is really well written. Set in 1962 Italy during the filming of Cleopatra and present day Italy, LA, London, Edinburgh, Portland, Seattle, and Idaho, it tells the stories of several lives intertwined with these backdrops. This is a good story and I recommend it. I really enjoyed it.