The slow-burning The Bishop's Bedroom by the late Italian author Piero Chiara was first published in 1976. Jill Foulston provides the English translation of this popular novel.
Italy, 1946: World War II has just ended. An unnamed soldier in his 30s is decompressing from the battlefield by aimlessly sailing across Lake Maggiore. A wealthy, middle-aged former soldier named Orimbelli spots him at a port, and they strike up a friendship. It is a chance meeting that will ensnare the younger soldier in a heartbreaking, murderous love triangle.
During a dinner at Orimbelli's villa with the older man's rich wife and his sister-in-law, Mathilde, Orimbelli begs the young man to take him sailing. The two set off on an excursion of debauchery--wining, dining and sleeping with various women. Unaware of the gritty details of their adventures, Mathilde joins them on the next outing. An attraction develops between her and the soldier, but Orimbelli pulls the younger man aside and professes love for Mathilde. He implies his feelings are reciprocated.
Then the group receives word that tragedy has struck the Orimbelli household and they must return immediately. Suspicion, doubt and secrets threaten the new friendships, and the young soldier realizes far too late that he is a pawn in Orimbelli's Machiavellian plan of survival.
The misogynistic attitudes of the decade survive Foulston's translation, and the much-lauded prose is almost verbose enough to sink the story. Luckily, Chiara's masterful character development keeps this tense tale from capsizing. The subtlety with which the elder Orimbelli seduces the broken younger soldier to his way of thinking while ruining a potentially healing relationship for two desperate people is almost Shakespearean in nature. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer