The Chapel: A Novel

by Michael Downing

Recently widowed, unhappily stuck on a pricey whiplash tour of Italy, Elizabeth Berman comes face to face with the first documented painting of a teardrop in human history, and in the presence of that tearful mother, and the arresting company of the renowned and anonymous women painted by Giotto in the Arena Chapel, she wakes up to the possibility that she is not lost.

Mitchell left me everything, just as he promised. “Everything,” he liked to say during his last month on the sofa, “everything will be yours,” as if it wasn’t yet. I was left with that and two adult children who could not tolerate my sitting in my home by myself—admittedly, rather too often in a capacious pink flannel nightgown and the green cardigan Mitchell was wearing on the afternoon he died.

That’s how Elizabeth winds up on a tour better suited to her late-husband, a Dante scholar. Mitchell masterminded the itinerary as a surprise for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Itching to leave as soon as she arrives in Padua, Elizabeth’s efforts to book a ticket home are stymied by her aggressively supportive children, the ministrations of an incomprehensibly Italian hotel staff, and the prospect of forfeiting the sizable

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2015

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lovely novel about a recently widowed woman taking a trip to Italy her dead husband had planned for her, in part to investigate their shared interest in Dante and Giotto, is so much more than that description would indicate. There is a less original version of this story that is a trite, bright meditation on love and second chances after death. There is also a less original version that seeks to flatten and make functional Dante's poetry and Giotto's art by making them clues in a grand puzzle for the protagonist to solve. Instead, Downing tells a beautiful, gentle, and deeply felt story that still manages to surprise and confound as it moves forward, in the same way real life and the embrace of new experience often do. Small touches I loved included the expertly drawn relationships between E and her two adult children - loving but also complex, wry, pushy, and disappointing, in all the ways family can be, especially when caring roles begin to reverse. I also loved the number of times a character would declare something they were going to do, or how things were going to be, and then events would overturn that declaration without comment, simply because things changed over time. This is the way life comes at us, and it lent a movement and verisimilitude to the experience of reading that make the book an immersive experience as well as a literary one. The same could be said for the visual images interspersed in the text, ranging from hand drawings to grainy tourist photos of extraordinary statuary, which lend flavor and depth. Not Great Literature but great literature, and well worth your time - just make sure you are ready to be in your feelings along the way.

[Oshun · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. It's a novel about a marriage, how one can feel grief, loss, and be furious all at the same time and wrongly believe one remembers things as they were. It’s about Dante’s Divine Comedy and its relationship to Giotto’s frescoes in a famous chapel in Padua also. If one is going to write about people’s pretensions one does need a focus. One review called it “playful and erudite but also self-conscious and perhaps too restlessly rarefied.” True, but it works for me because I relate so much of it to a real-life relationship past–if the shoe fits wear it. A lot of the worst things about these people feel very real. The ending was a complete surprise to me. I think it would be better appreciated by older readers than young adults--one needs to be a bit of a cynic and a survivor. Also one will have an easier time accepting the framework if one is used to being around intellectuals but does not take their shenanigans and sense of self-importance too seriously. Reading and enjoying requires a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at oneself.

[Cecilia Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book incredibly confusing… I think if I knew more about Italian art and Dante I would have enjoyed it more.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is difficult to read because it is hard to believe that a mature woman, recently widowed, could be so confused in so many ways. But you have to tolerate it to get through the book. The book does contain descriptions of art that some readers may find interesting. Going to Italy with a tour group, though? Who does that? I suppose there is little to respect in the heroine of this piece since she was supposedly unaware of who she was without being the helpmate to her husband. Yet she was the main bookkeeper of family funds, a reference librarian, a teacher, a mother of two adults, one successful lawyer, one a floundering moocher. All this going on in Cambridge? And I won't mention the fate of her husband's life work. Yeah, very strange book wrapped up in religious imagery. I can't recommend it unless you want to read about Padua.

[Angelosdaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great portrait of the state of mind of the widow of a long marriage

Love Giotto, love Italy. I have visited for a short time, but did not see any Giotto. Did study him as part of my minor in Italian studies . Enjoyed so much of the analysis of his work as though I was there. Loved how it was woven into the story. Enjoyed the long slow development of what may become a romance between T. And E., two people who never are sure where they want to be present. There is humor as well, sometimes prompting me to laugh out loud.
A widow of three and a half years of an almost 48 year marriage, I cannot afford to go to Italy, but this novel took me there . The insights into E.'s mind and the doubts about her husband and marriage sometimes paralleled mine. This book is an adventure for an often neglected reader: the woman of a certain age. Highly recommend.

[Sally DiPaula · Rating 2 out of 5]

Art History or Fiction?

This book is as much an art history lesson as it is a novel. The reader gets bogged down in multi-page asides about Giotto and a chapel in Padua, then has to pick up the thread of the plot numerous times. The main character, Elizabeth, is interesting well developed and is the reason for one of the stars I gave the book. The rest of the characters could have added to the novel had the author decided to give them more than walk-on parts. The second star is for the author's prose, which is entertaining and sometimes captivating but, unfortunately, not enough to save this book.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ladies of a certain age will 'get' this book, be delighted by some very funny bits, and reminded that confusion and mystery keep life interesting.

[Maureen D. Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story

The first book in a long time that I couldn't put down. Really enjoyable and thought provoking plot. Great read!

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. I wanted to like it as it was about Italy and art. But I did not like the characters or the writing style or anything about it. I found it boring and all jumbled.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had my choice between being transported to the Sistine Chapel in Rome or the Arena Chapel in Padua, I would choose the latter in a heartbeat. Somehow, Giotto's frescoes speak to me far more than Michelangelo's magnificent but overwhelming masterworks. So I'm awarding this somewhat improbable novel four stars because it gave me a chance to revisit--and linger in--Padua. It should also be of great interest to Dante fans, because the plot revolves around the attempt by the widow's late husband, for much of his career, to write an offbeat interpretation of Dante's life. I remember little of the romance at the center of the plot, just the enjoyment of hanging out in the Arena Chapel for a prolonged visit.

[Robyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, I really wanted to like this book more. I would be about to give up on it, though, and then a passage would strike me as interesting and I'd keep going. In the end, I finished it but wasn't really happy about having bothered. There was some interesting history about Giotto and the Arena Chapel in Italy but it wasn't enough to hold the narrative together for me. I just didn't care the the characters very much and the more I read about them the LESS clear they became. Can't really recommend this one.

[Liz Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was such a disappointment. I love all things Italian and heard the author speak, so I was anticipating a great read. Instead I had an experience akin to slogging through a swamp. The story line is confusing and the characters opaque. It's hard to finish a book when you don't know, and therefore care about, the protagonist. The book did inspire met to visit the Arena Chapel in Padua, but that's about it.

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was confused for most of this book, but I was in good company because I think the main character was as well. I did finish it, but was tempted to give it up at several points. Way too much detail on the paintings and chapel, which others might find interesting.

[Bonnie M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the what?!