The Bishop's Bedroom by Piero Chiara

The Bishop's Bedroom by Piero Chiara

"Piero Chiara's novel is at once a murder mystery and a lyrical study of desire, greed, and deception. The ending is simply stunning."--André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

"A strong, well-written and weirdly seductive little novel about enjoying the small pleasures of life."--New York Times Book Review

Summer 1946. World War Two has just come to an end and there's a yearning for renewal. A man in his thirties is sailing on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, hoping to put off the inevitable return to work. Dropping anchor in a small, fashionable port, he meets the enigmatic owner of a nearby villa who invites him home for dinner with his older wife and beautiful widowed sister-in-law. The sailor is intrigued by the elegant waterside mansion, staffed with servants and imbued with mystery, and stays in a guest room previously occupied by a now deceased bishop related to his host. The two men form an uneasy bond, recognizing in each other a shared taste for idling and erotic adventure. But tragedy puts an abrupt halt to their revels and shatters the tranquility of the villa. A sultry, stylish psychological thriller executed with supreme literary finesse.

Piero Chiara was born in 1913 in a village on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy and worked as a court official until World War II broke out. When a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Fascist government in 1944, he fled to Switzerland, where his first work of writing, Incantavi, a collection of poems, was published in 1945. He returned to Italy after the war and went on to become one of the most well-known postwar writers. He is extensively read and studied in his home country, and his stories and novels have been adapted for both television and film. He has won more than a dozen literary prizes, including the Campiello in 1964 and the Bancarello in 1979. Piero Chiara died in 1986 after a long illness. His debut book, The Disappearance of Signora Guilia, was translated into English.