The Eighth Wonder of the World

[Ya Sam]

magnificent new novel that strikingly reimagines Fascist Italy.

When Benito Mussolini announces a worldwide competition for a monument to 
celebrate his victory over Ethiopia, the winning design is an almost 
unimaginable mile-high tower, La Vittoria, created by the famed American 
architect, Amos Prince. In his struggle to bring this modern Babel to 
completion in the face of every conceivable obstacle—including Mussolini’s 
wavering support and loss of power, and the vicissitudes of a world 
war—Prince will lose his family, his native country, and perhaps even his 
mind.

Interwoven with the story of Amos Prince is that of Maximilian Shabilian, a 
recent graduate of Yale who journeys to Rome to attach himself to the 
world’s greatest architect. As World War II progresses, Max becomes 
inextricably bound up with the building of the tower and with Prince’s 
family, above all with his beautiful and mysterious daughter Aria. In the 
end he must choose between his devotion to his mentor and his loyalty to his 
fellow Jews, who are increasingly threatened by the Fascist regime in Italy. 
Remembering who built the pyramids in Egypt and the Arch of Titus in Rome, 
Max decides to use La Vittoria to protect his people. In a moment of 
terrible, tragic irony, the very plan that was designed to save the Jews 
ends up delivering them to their unspeakable fate.

In 2005 the aged Shabilian makes a fearful journey back to Italy. This epic 
novel, then, spans millennia, from Solomon and Sheba 3,500 years ago to 
Mussolini, the Caesar of the Twentieth Century—a dictator who is half a 
posturing clown and half the menacing tyrant who, with magnetic force, 
determines the fate of nations. Finally, in its remarkable concluding 
chapter, Maximilian confronts the present ruler of Italy, Berlusconi, whose 
grip on Italian life may be far more powerful than that of any of the 
Caesars who came before him.

http://www.otherpress.com/bookpage.php?bkID=478

Kirkus Reviews

STARRED REVIEW

Epstein’s best book since his 1979 triumph King of the Jews—a synthesis of 
history and imaginative daring, akin to Catch-22 and the encyclopedic 
historical fiction of Thomas Pynchon and William T. Vollmann


http://www.otherpress.com/reviews.php?bkID=478&bp=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26q%3D%2522Leslie%2BEpstein%2522%2B%2B%2522eighth%2Bwonder%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bworld%2522

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