Five Works of Fiction and Non-fiction by Mark Frutkin

Mark Frutkin, 2010

This novel is set in the city of Cremona in northern Italy back in the 17th and 18th centuries. A Jesuit from the Vatican, an official Devil’s Advocate, has come to investigate the life of a priest, Fabrizio Cambiati, who the local people swear is a saint, for his good works especially in helping people with their illnesses, but whose life is somewhat more complex. A grand entertainment with a rich assemblage of local colour, this novel won the Trillium Award (for the best book of fiction in the province of Ontario), and the Sunburst Award, and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Book Prize. The two centuries in the story are connected by the passing of Haley’s Comet. In the end, the ‘saint’ has to flee Cremona and heads to Venice (where a follow-up novel takes place, called The Rising Tide).

Mark Frutkin, 1998

A novel set in Paris during la belle epoque (1900-1914), this work focuses on the life of Guillaume Apollinaire, one of the most famous of French poets and writers. Apollinaire actually was a friend and reviewer of Picasso and invented the words cubism and surrealism. In addition to marvelous poetry, he also wrote a few novels and discovered the works of the Marquis de Sade. This novel is filled with humour, pathos, tragedy and the intriguing nature of creativity. Apollinaire embodied the spirit of his age, and eventually fought for France in WWI. He was badly injured, returned alive to Paris, and finally succumbed to the influenza epidemic in 1918. This novel was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award (for best work of fiction in Canada) and the Trillium Award.

Mark Frutkin, 2021

A work of fiction, this novel explores the fascinating life of the famous 17th century Italian painter, Caravaggio. The chapters of the novel move back and forth from a focus on the artist to the view of the assassin, who was a model for a painting by Caravaggio and then hunted him down later in his life. Early on, Caravaggio was an orphan who grew up on his uncle’s farm near Milan (next to the village of Caravaggio). His real name was Michelangelo Merisi, a name that required a change, obviously, for a later artist. The book focuses on how Caravaggio’s style of painting, which brought out the brilliance of light by contrasting it with the darkest of darks (a style called ‘chiaroscuro’), was also a reflection of his life and personality. He was known to have a terrible temper while, at the same time, being a profoundly skilled and successful artist. The novel, which at times reads like a thriller, follows his life from the farm to an apprenticeship in Milan, to the success he experienced in Rome (being supported by a cardinal of the church), until his flight to Naples, Malta and Sicily after killing a man on the streets of Rome.