Obsessive love and the futile pursuit of perfection serve as the backdrop of John Wallen’s complex new novel, Calypso of the Appenine Way.
A cynical character, Luke, is consumed with love for a young Italian girl, Eleonora. Their relationship is used to develop conflicting themes, including love versus anti-love, sincerity versus cynicism, reality versus myth, and bravery versus foolhardiness. These sometimes subterranean ideas work in a subtle relationship to each other and, in the hidden interstices between conflicting themes, produce a compelling and profound work.
John Wallen is a writer and academic who has already published several collections of short stories under the pseudonym of “Jon Aristides.”
Calypso of the Appenine Way is available in softcover (ISBN 978-1-60264-231-7) from Virtualbookworm.com, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. The book can also be ordered from most bookstores around the United States and the United Kingdom.