When Alex Massolini's brother is killed in Vietnam, he drops out of Columbia University and leaves his conservative family behind for Capri to become secretary to Rupert Grant, a famous British novelist and poet who dominates the island like a latter -- day Prospero. Alex soon finds himself ensnared in a web of love affairs, friendships, and rivalries within the eccentric community that inhabits the idyllic beauty of the isolated Italian island.

The Apprentice Lover traces a young American's enchantment and disenchantment -- with his American past, his new European mentor, and the various inhabitants on an island famous for its characters.

Amazon.com Review
Jay Parini's The Apprentice Lover is a smart and sexy coming-of-age novel marked with the sense and sensibility of the '70s and the Vietnam War. After Alex Massolini's brother dies in Vietnam in 1970, Alex drops out of Columbia University and travels to Italy to work as a secretary for Rupert Grant, a famous Scottish writer living on the isle of Capri. Villa Clio, where the irascible Grant lives with his wife, is the center of singular and sybaritic scenes involving Grant's two young research assistants, the unstable Marisa and the aloof Holly. Dinner brings cruel psychological parlor games and such literary luminaries as W.H. Auden, Graham Greene, and Gore Vidal. Brilliantly brittle dinner dialogue is contrasted with the raw, emotional letters to Alex from his brother Nicky in Vietnam. During his months on Capri, Alex learns much about the craft of writing from the riveting yet monstrous Rupert Grant, who comes to resemble the lustful and dictatorial Roman emperor Tiberius, exiled to Capri. In the wake of a tragic death, a romantic off-island interlude, and a thrown dagger, Alex decides to flee Capri, only to come back 30 years later for a final reckoning. In The Apprentice Lover, Parini has created an unforgettable portrait of a literary titan and his youthful apprentice. --Susan Biskeborn