Partita in Venice

"Two sensual women in a romantic, watery city - can they both be after Tommy Manning? If so, it's nearly a Hollywood script. The only trouble is this: one of them acts suspiciously like a guilty memory, or even a ghost. And she may be the latter. After all, hasn't Jack Benny just shown up as a Venetian gondolier, complete with outdated, whining jokes, to pole Tommy along glistening canals?". "In this comic-tragic novel, we follow Tommy M., who has written speeches for some Very Important People, in his so-suave, so-certain sophistication toward his so-boorish, so-certain downfall. As Tommy becomes more uncertain; as he encounters tall Aunt Maria and her gypsy potions; as he is physically trippedno less - by the "chief rabbi of Venice," who claims to have posed for a canvas by Antonio Canaletto; as he watches faces disappear and reappear along the Venetian calle and waterwaysas all this leaves him more uncertain, we become more certain. A doom stretching directly from Grecian times is after you, Tommy, isn't it? And your fine male nonchalance and coy humor won't help in the least when its long, fine talons grab hold..."--BOOK JACKET.