Voices in a Mask: Stories

by Geoffrey Green

Based on images of disguise in literature, theater, and opera, this short-story cycle explores themes of identity and subterfuge in a fictional fugue that ranges from comic to poignant. Into the librettos of Don Giovanni , Tosca , Rigoletto , and other operas, Green weaves the authentic biographies of their singers and composers, modern-day settings, and his own imaginative twists. Throughout Voices in a Mask , characters obscure and reveal themselves as art mimics life and life, art. Ultimately the very acts of masking and projecting reveal a truth about the power of art and its inherent deceptions.

Genres: Fiction

244 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2008

Reviews

[Kerfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot of duplicity in these stories/narrations. Is it a story or an essay? Is the narrator the author or an invented character? It's hard to tell if or when the author is being serious. "Krista did not know whether to burst out laughting or listen in rapt attention. The scene was simultaneously bogus AND genuine." That about sums it up.

Sometimes the writing is affected--everything must be exclaimed over!--and then here comes a beautifully written passage that seems right on the mark.

Opera is the thematic unifier of Green's layers of artifice and fact, slipping constantly between the seen and unseen, the known and the imagined.

The voice takes a bit of getting used to, but it is always both interesting and entertaining. The combination of "high" and "low" works well to illuminate the way art both embraces and transcends all categories.