Two lives, interwoven

Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess (Simon and Schuster, 1980)

Backstory: for my 21st birthday, I got a collection of things from my birth year -- a bottle of port (still unopened), a VHS copy of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (foreign language Academy Award winner), and a first edition of this novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker.

Cut to now, when I finally decided that while just having the book was nice and all, I really ought to read it. And at over 600 pages, it was a slog. (Especially with YA dystopias and engagements and colds and holidays and such to distract me.) And my description was probably less than glowing: "It's about a gay writer in the 20th century and his brother-in-law the Pope."

This is more or less accurate. It's about two intertwined families throughout the century, as narrated by the aging homosexual novelist. His brother was a comedian, his sister best described (for the moment) as the wife of an Italian musician. Said musician had one brother a businessman in Chicago, another a priest, and a sister who was a nun. Toomey (the author's) family came from British and French Catholic stock, and so faith (and sexuality) are interwoven throughout the novel.

We know from the start that Carlo the priest will eventually ascend to the head of the Church. But the path there is convoluted for them all. And because I read in small doses, Toomey's recollections from 1918 to roughly the early 1970s seemed to take almost the 50 years they spanned. Which is not to say the writing wasn't sharp and interesting, it was just dense. And heavy. It's an accomplished and successful family, but also a somewhat cursed one, and people's seemingly small and benevolent actions consistently have violent and dreadful ramifications that could not be foreseen. It gets a little rough.

But all in all still fascinating. And a lovely birthday gift, even all these years later.