Bel Canto - by Ann Patchett (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award - Winner of the Orange Prize - National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist - New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21^st Century

"Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." --Washington Post Book World

Ann Patchett's spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening--until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.

From the Back Cover

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gunwielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Review Quotes

"Ann Patchett can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance." - Publishers Weekly

"Bel Canto invites readers to explore new and unfamiliar territory, to take some emotional risks rather than stand with Rolland among those 'already saved.'" - Chicago Tribune

"In more ways than one, Bel Canto is about finding beauty in unexpected places." - New York Magazine

"The author has taken what could have been a variation on the Lord of the Flies scenario and fashions instead a 'Lord of the Butterflies, ' a dreamlike fable in which the impulses toward beauty and love are shown to be as irrepressible as the instincts for violence and destruction." - New York Magazine

"Patchett can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance." - Publishers Weekly

"You'll find a few hours of entertainment and maybe even a strange yearning to be kidnapped." - Time Out New York

"Handwritten notes in the margins reveal the kind of insider tidbits you didn't even know you were dying to know....A conversation about a masterpiece...with the actual master." - Oprah Magazine

"A fascinating look into an author's mind [that] will make for such a unique reading experience." - The Skimm

"Patchett's tragicomic novel--a fantasia of guns and Puccini and Red Cross negotiations--invokes the glorious, unreliable promises of art, politics, and love." - The New Yorker

"Bel Canto has all the qualities one has come to expect from a classic Ann Patchett novel: grace, beauty, elegance, and magic." - Madison Smartt Bell

"Positively spellbinding." - Seattle Times

"Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." - Washington Post Book World

"Provocative and enchanting." - Detroit Free Press

"Tremendous fun... Rereading this terrific novel with [Patchett]... is a master class in fiction writing conveyed in marginalia that has the tone of an ideal dinner conversation." - The Washington Post

"Combining an unerring instinct for telling detail with the broader brushstrokes you need to tackle issues of culture and politics, Patchett creates a remarkably compelling chronicle of a multinational group of the rich and powerful held hostage for months." - Kirkus Reviews

"A provocative and enchanting look at the power art has to suspend real life and to create a better world, one in which the differences between people can be erased and the barriers to our best selves can be hurdled." - Detroit Free Press

"A novel that showcases Patchett's profound understanding of the heart." - BookForum

"Bel Canto by Ann Patchett should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty. Ann Patchett is a special writer who has written a special book." - WXQR

"Patchett doing what she does best--what gives this novel its power is Patchett's flair for sketching the subtleties of her characters' behavior." - New York Times Book Review

"A strange, terrific, spellcasting story." - San Francisco Chronicle