If richly detailed, deeply researched historical fiction is one of your favorite kinds of books to read, then this story centered on the relationship of Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo might be for you. I also appreciate the manipulation of the timeline within the narrative that supports the emotional tone of how the story is told. Looking forward to more historical fiction from Castellani in the future!

Broadway Direct link: https://broadwaydirect.com/bookfilters-2019-holiday-book-guide-for-theater-lovers/

Broadway Direct coverage: It’s no wonder author Christopher Castellani chose to base his debut novel, Leading Men, on Tennessee Williams. That larger-than-life playwright is almost as colorful as his greatest characters. Here, Castellani brings Williams to life without letting the man overshadow his one true love: Frank Merlo, a blue-collar guy from New Jersey who served honorably as the right-hand man to this needy but generous genius. -- Michael Giltz

Traditionally I enjoy historical fiction and ones revolving around real life characters are all the more interesting and yet…this one was a drag, no pun intended, despite the fact that a drag queen saves the day toward the end of the book. I tried and tried. Something about the gay romantic lives of famous authors just didn’t do it for me. I don’t think it was the setting, post WWII Italy and present day NYC and Provincetown are great literary destinations. So it has to be down to the characters. And the limelight of that show belongs to Tenn and Frank, the famous author and playwright and his lover of 15 years. You get to follow their tumultuous on and off affair through the years, continents and other men. Because, yeah, they slept around like crazy, sometimes competitively. Yet they went on, the melodramatic Tennessee and the optimistic Frank. The latter is obviously meant to be the likeable one here, but overall their great love affair just didn’t work for me. Or for them, for that matter. Although their years together were the most productive of Tennessee’s life. It fact it didn’t even seem like a great love affair it was meant to be, more like a severely dysfunctional relationship. Unless relationships between two men have different standards. The entire thing actually…the languorous decadence of the literati’s lifestyles, just didn’t sing for me. Everyone came off superficial and tedious. Except for maybe Anja Bloom, the glue that holds the story and the main couple together in a way. Ms. Bloom is a fictionalized version of Liv Ullmann, her perspective carries the novel into present day, where she is very old and very wealthy and decides to put on a play to commemorate Frank and Tenn. And yes, the novel does feature a complete (and completely fabricated) unknown Tennessee’s play. And yes, it’s no fun, neither the play nor the fact that it’s stuck in there. But Anja Bloom has layers, she’s fascinating and possibly the most developed character in the book. Which is ironic or at least very strange…that the fictional(ish) person should be more interesting, likeable and compelling that the real ones. So that’s the book. I really tried to like it, but mostly managed a sort of academic appreciation. It’s well written, proper literature and all that, but so very slow and difficult to care about. It’s possible I’m just not the right audience for it. Christopher Castellani as an author himself and a gay man has obviously found the story much more relatable as the afterword leads us to believe and so this book was a labor of love for him. And Tennessee fans would probably find this interesting also. It is, after all a good story, but for me an article or a short form (novella at most) would have sufficed. Thanks Netgalley.

A stunning meditation on love, fame and art. Castellani asks, 'Do we not play our parts every minute of every day, even when we are alone?' By toggling between memory, letters and the stage he digs into the indispensable question of how we define the past and future - and even ourselves. He left me reeling and I loved it. Read this book.