The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories

by Jess Walter

Overview

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes—for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous—as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places.

We all live like we’re famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during “the year of my reinvention” finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch, once again “solidifying his place in the contemporary canon as one of our most gifted builders of fictional worlds” (Esquire).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062868121
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/27/2023
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	133,990
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Jess Walter is the author of seven previous novels, including the bestsellers, The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins, the National Book Award Finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction, collected in The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water, has won the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize and appeared three times in The Best American Short Stories. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.

Hometown:

Spokane, Washington

Date of Birth:

July 20, 1965

Place of Birth:

Spokane, Washington

Education:

B.A., Eastern Washington University, 1987

Website:

http://www.jesswalter.com

Editorial Reviews

04/04/2022

Reading Walter’s perceptive collection (after The Cold Millions) is like sitting next to the guy at a dinner party who has something hilarious to say about everyone and knows all their secrets. In the title story, written with actor Edoardo Ballerini, a starry-eyed Nebraska kid spends a year studying in Italy after high school. There, he stumbles onto the set of a film starring a fading Italian bombshell, and the encounter sets off an antic shaggy-dog tale culminating in the students in his Latin class writing a new ending for the movie. Walter is even better in quieter stories like “Drafting,” in which a woman battling cancer seeks out an old flame, a 36-year-old perpetually stoned skater dude who, despite his utter fecklessness, is the only person able to quiet her existential dread. Occasionally, Walter’s shrewdness about the nature of his characters can feel a little schematic, as in the otherwise entertaining and witty “Famous Actor,” involving a hookup between a coffee shop barista and a slumming movie star with a drug problem. The dialogue and setup are great (“It’s so great to just be in, like, a fucking apartment,” the actor says about the narrator’s place), though it ends predictably. Compared to the novels, this is minor Jess Walter, but minor Jess Walter is better than most. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A glorious addition to the oeuvre. . . . So. Damn. Funny. . . . Prepare for delight.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"One of our finest practitioners of the short story form returns with an ebullient second collection. Fans of Walter’s seminal Beautiful Ruins will fall hard for the swoony title story... Wise, poignant, and generous of spirit, these stories remind us that Walter is a national treasure."  — Esquire ("Best Books of Summer 2022")

"Even great short story collections normally contain a miss or two in the lot. But not this one. Every single offering in Jess Walter’s newest collection is a poignant, heart-filled gem. His subjects range from Italian actresses to besotted teachers, surprising one-night stands to overheard diner conversations. He delights equally whether bringing to life a minor moment or an epic love story." — Daily Beast

"Empathetic yet unsentimental [and] intensely affecting fiction...[Walter] manages to render multiple generations of emotionally complex lives in just a handful of pages. . . . The stories in The Angel of Rome are largehearted and wonderfully inventive. They can be savored at the dentist’s office, or anywhere, without an eye on the clock."  — Hilma Wolitzer, New York Times Book Review

"Reading Walter’s perceptive collection (after The Cold Millions) is like sitting next to the guy at a dinner party who has something hilarious to say about everyone and knows all their secrets." — Publishers Weekly

“A transfixing cast of characters navigating fame, performance, identity, aging, and romance.”  — Elle

“Twelve sparkling, neatly varied pieces that range from Europe to the small towns of rural Washington State, and from the 1970s to the present. The rambunctious title story shows Walter at his best … Walter also reveals a gift for darker, more surreal humor … (and) compassion, wit, and general charm.”  — Booklist

"The beloved “Beautiful Ruins” author is back with a collection of upbeat short stories. The title story recalls his hit novel with its Italian setting, beautiful movie star character and goofy male protagonist. Even in stories about dealing with troubles like cancer, a parent with Alzheimer's, homophobia and climate change, Walter finds humor and warmth."  — Newsday

"Walter’s new collection of stories gives us characters as diverse as an actor in recovery, an exchange student in Rome, a teenage girl grappling with the loss of her mother, and a young gay man struggling to connect with his elderly father. Walter is sure to bring his poignant touch to these stories as he did with his previous books, Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions." — Lit Hub

”The Best Short Story Writer in 21st Century America? … I was unprepared to fall headlong in love with this writer … What makes Jess Walter so good? For starters, there’s the way he gets deep into a diverse array of heads and hearts … In the end, it is (his) fully imagined citizenship in our world that is his primary power. Call it a vision, a prowess, or an instinct, but whatever the word, it cannot be taught in grad school. — Arts Fuse

"If it were possible to sum up Jess Walter’s The Angel of Rome and Other Stories in a word, it would be humane. In the 12 wide-ranging, consistently empathetic stories that compose his second collection, he creates a memorable assortment of characters who bump up against life’s inevitable obstacles, large and small, then stumble through or surmount them. . . . The tales in The Angel of Rome aren’t easily categorized, but each one provides a refreshingly honest glimpse into what it means to be alive." — BookPage (Starred Review)

"Walter’s intriguing and witty collection of short fiction stories shines a light on the lives of a diverse range of characters experiencing existential crises while searching for inspiration. Despite the fact that The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories is fictional, it’s unequivocally relatable and insightful, perhaps even encouraging the reader to do a little bit of their own introspective thinking." — Town & Country

"He’s at the very top of his game. . . . The stories Walter’s characters create come from pain and joy and the pasts they can’t forget. The result is a powerful collection, insightful and frequently quite funny, which stuns in all sorts of unexpected ways."  —  Michael Schaub, Alta

"Reading Jess Walter’s second collection of short stories, one is shepherded through sometimes gritty terrain, but with the constant assurance of finding light and unexpected laughs. He mines gold from the profound perspectives of his unique characters."  — Christian Science Monitor

"(Jess Walter's) newest short story collection, The Angel of Rome and Other Stories, is the mark of a profoundly talented writer who can capture the internal lives of a 20-something barista living in Bend, Oregon, an older man glaring at kids from his window in Spokane and an Italian actress reflecting on how she never got her dream role in equally persuasive and poignant ways." — Seattle Times

From the Publisher

It’s a tremendous work, a vivid, propulsive, historical novel with a politically explosive backdrop that reverberates through our own.

USA Today (on The Cold Millions)

"Stories that twist and plumb, delivering unexpected laughs while playing with what we think we know … Walter has emerged as one of the country’s most dazzling novelists … so freakishly, fiendishly good, it isn’t fair." 

Seattle Times

"Walter has made a major career out of the minor character, and his portrait of Rye . . . is generously brought to life with humanity and wit. Walter’s latest novel is more hybrid beast than those earlier books: not quite fiction and not history but a splicing of the two, so that the invented rises to the occasion of the real and the real guides and determines the fate of the invented. . . . Which isn’t to say the book lacks brio or invention; it is full of both."

New York Times Book Review (on The Cold Millions)

A ridiculously talented writer.” 

New York Times (on The Zero)

Captivating ... devastating ... Walter is a bighearted man who excels at writing about other bighearted, if broken, men. That generosity of spirit, coupled with Walter's seeming inability to look away from the messy bits, elevates these stories from dirges to symphonies.” 

New York Times Book Review

Vibrant. . . . Filled with a gusto that honors the beauty of believing in societal change and simultaneously recognizes the cruel limits of the possible. . . . The Cold Millions is reminiscent of the work of John dos Passos and EL. Doctorow. . . . A spirited and expansive novel.

Wall Street Journal (on The Cold Millions)

Jess Walter is as talented a natural storyteller as is working in American fiction these days … These stories have both zip and heart, muscle and soul.” 

Washington Post

Jess Walter is a superb storyteller. His plot rolls on at a steady pace. His ear for dialogue, whatever the character, is acute. He knows when to amp up the prose with a telling metaphor. . . . As polished and hard as a diamond, The Cold Millions reminds us of America’s tempestuous past and suggests that all this is anything but past.

Boston Globe (on The Cold Millions)

The Cold Millions is a literary unicorn: a book about socio-economic disparity that’s also a page-turner, a postmodern experiment that reads like a potboiler, and a beautiful, lyric hymn to the power of social unrest in American history. It’s funny and harrowing, sweet and violent, innocent and experienced; it walks a dozen tightropes. Jess Walter is a national treasure.

Anthony Doerr

Jess Walter is as talented a natural storyteller as is working in American fiction these days … These stories have both zip and heart, muscle and soul.” 

Washington Post

A prodigiously gifted writer. His sentences nearly sing.” 

Los Angeles Review of Books (on Beautiful Ruins)

It’s a tremendous work, a vivid, propulsive, historical novel with a politically explosive backdrop that reverberates through our own.

USA Today on The Cold Millions

Jess Walter is a superb storyteller. His plot rolls on at a steady pace. His ear for dialogue, whatever the character, is acute. He knows when to amp up the prose with a telling metaphor. . . . As polished and hard as a diamond, The Cold Millions reminds us of America’s tempestuous past and suggests that all this is anything but past.

Boston Globe on The Cold Millions

"Walter has made a major career out of the minor character, and his portrait of Rye . . . is generously brought to life with humanity and wit. Walter’s latest novel is more hybrid beast than those earlier books: not quite fiction and not history but a splicing of the two, so that the invented rises to the occasion of the real and the real guides and determines the fate of the invented. . . . Which isn’t to say the book lacks brio or invention; it is full of both."

New York Times Book Review on The Cold Millions

Vibrant. . . . Filled with a gusto that honors the beauty of believing in societal change and simultaneously recognizes the cruel limits of the possible. . . . The Cold Millions is reminiscent of the work of John dos Passos and EL. Doctorow. . . . A spirited and expansive novel.

Wall Street Journal on The Cold Millions

★ 06/10/2024

Collected for the first time, Walter's (Beautiful Ruins; The Cold Millions) dozen bittersweet short stories offer peeks into the hidden corners of the main characters' lives and the surprising revelations that change the course of each. Narrators Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan demonstrate their wide vocal range, embodying each character as they alternate narrating the stories. Whelan shines when she exudes the anguish felt by a teen abandoned by her mother to follow a man, the reckless abandon of a young woman undergoing radiation for cancer, and the certainty of a mother trying to explain to her teen daughter when she will become an adult. Likewise, Ballerini becomes an older couple berating an eavesdropping writer transcribing their conversation, a lonely science teacher crushing on his student's mother, a young man who befriends a sexually charged older actor in Italy, and a gay man trying to care for his father who has dementia. VERDICT These poignant stories of self-discovery revealing the faces we show to the world, our friends and family, or perhaps no one at all, alternately tug at the heartstrings and tickle the funny bone. An essential purchase.—Stephanie Bange

Library Journal - Audio

01/01/2022

A collector of honors, with Stegner, Rona Jaffe, and three Pushcart Prizes among them, Conklin offers a Rainbow Rainbow of short stories about queer, gender-nonconforming, and trans characters like the fifth grader who explores gender identity by dressing as an ox—instead of a matriarch—for a school reenactment of the Oregon Trail. After closing out her twice Booker-honored "Wolf Hall" trilogy, Mantel limns the transformative aspects of childhood in the loosely autobiographical stories of Learning To Talk. Author of the New York Times best-selling Three Women and the deliciously contentious debut novel Animal, a personal favorite, Taddeo offers stories (two Pushcart Prize-winning) grounded in the dating service Ghost Lover, a forwarding system for text messages (75,000-copy first printing). In The Angel of Rome, Beautiful Ruins author Walter highlights crucial moments in the lives of his characters, from a teenage girl aspiring to be like her missing mother to a son who must come out repeatedly to a father facing dementia.

Library Journal

This audiobook marks the convergence of two Golden Voice narrators with one of the country’s finest fiction writers. Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan narrate these empathic, witty, and finely wrought short stories. Whelan sparkles with her persuasive style, smooth tone, and practiced cadence. Her honey-coated voice is especially memorable in the ironic mode of “Mr. Voice” and “Famous Actor.” Ballerini contributed his own life history to the title story and performs with his characteristic empathy and signature evocative tone. He acts all his stories with restraint and veracity. Author Jess Walter ennobles his characters, giving them dignity in difficult circumstances and creating consequential experiences. Often set in the less glamorous parts of the country like Spokane and Boise, his writing truly makes the ordinary extraordinary. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile

This audiobook marks the convergence of two Golden Voice narrators with one of the country’s finest fiction writers. Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan narrate these empathic, witty, and finely wrought short stories. Whelan sparkles with her persuasive style, smooth tone, and practiced cadence. Her honey-coated voice is especially memorable in the ironic mode of “Mr. Voice” and “Famous Actor.” Ballerini contributed his own life history to the title story and performs with his characteristic empathy and signature evocative tone. He acts all his stories with restraint and veracity. Author Jess Walter ennobles his characters, giving them dignity in difficult circumstances and creating consequential experiences. Often set in the less glamorous parts of the country like Spokane and Boise, his writing truly makes the ordinary extraordinary. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile

★ 2022-03-30
A dozen stories spell excellent news for fans of the Bard of Spokane.

Since Beautiful Ruins, his 2012 blockbuster, Walter has won a legion of readers who have been through the backlist and impatiently gobbled down his two follow-ups—a story collection, We Live in Water (2013), and the excellent historical novel Cold Millions (2020). This second collection of shorts is a glorious addition to the oeuvre, with a much brighter mood than its gloomy predecessor. The title story, which began its life as an Audible original, is a mini Beautiful Ruins, including an Italian setting, beautiful movie-star character, and heartbreakingly adorable but benighted male protagonist, here a blue-collar boy from Nebraska whose year abroad involves church-sponsored Latin lessons at a “papal community college” in a Roman industrial building. This. Story. Is. So. Damn. Funny. And almost ridiculously heartwarming. But the same can be said of many of the others, no matter how apparently depressing their topic. For example, the story about a father who must be institutionalized, “Town & Country,” opens with the fact that “Dad literally could not remember to not screw the sixty-year-old lady across the street,” and creates for the man in question an outlaw assisted living center in a seedy, one-story motel in northern Idaho where the meatloaf is still $2 and all the drinks are doubles. The climate change story, “The Way the World Ends,” brings two very depressed Ph.D. students to Mississippi State University to vie for a position in the geosciences department, then throws them together with a three-weeks-out-of-the-closet, very lonely college student named Jeremiah who's trying to decide whether it's worth risking life and limb to march in his first Gay Pride parade. What one of the “climate zealots” says to defend his newfound love of country music resonates through the collection: “Life is hard, the songs seemed to say, but at least it's funny, and it rhymes.”

Not sure why the author is in such a good mood, but it's contagious. Prepare for delight.

Kirkus Reviews