Amanda Prantera

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I'm currently enjoying Amanda Prantera's 1996 novel Zoe Trope (a sequel of sorts to her earlier novel, Proto Zoe: yes, the woman should really be called Amanda Pun-terror), and as I expect she's a name not many are familiar with, to fill in the gaps let me append my Amazon review of her last-but-one novel Capri File (2001). This may go some way to explaining why the first few chapters of Zoe Trope have caused the greatest shaking yet of my so-far intact book buying ban. She really is awfully good...

Amanda Prantera's not exactly a big name these days but I was semi-familiar with her when I saw Capri File, read the first few pages and had to buy it to read on. I am sure I used to have a couple of her books culled from a secondhand shop in the early 90s: I remember being attracted by her originality and ear for a title (Strangeloop, The Cabalist, and who can forget the now legendary Conversations With Lord Byron On Perversion, 163 Years After His Lordship's Death?). I think I had the first two of these but never read them; either they fell into that small category of books which passes through my hands from bookshop to charity shop without ever catching on my brain, or they're still at the bottom of a storage box somewhere, crushed and petrified under strata of more recent books, and providing essential fossil fuels for future generations.


So anyhow. I had never heard of Capri File but her name made me open it, and I was quite gripped by the first pages, which took the form of healthily realistic-sounding emails from Lola Salvia d'Acquaviva, a woman living on the island of Capri, to an online book-search service, seeking some titles to help her research a new novel. I delighted in the combination in her email voice of literary learning and pun-obsessed whimsy. Just the sort of emails I like to receive...

So I took it home and devoured it. The email correspondence is one-way, so although Lola and the booksearcher Simon strike up an easy friendship, we only ever hear her side of the conversation. This has of course been done before in more traditional epistolatory form, though it's a technique which lends itself more to the short story, for people abandoned and plaintively crying out for a response from their beloved. In Capri File (the title by now a bit of a crashing bore of a pun), though, there is another side to the story; we just don't hear it. Prantera manages to pull this off without making Lola recap all the contents of Simon's last email at the start of each of hers, and gives the reader the right to do a bit of work on filling in the blanks themselves.

The plot - for this, and don't tell the great and good world of Eng. Lit., is a novel with a story that really does drag you on, virtually a real-life Thriller in its breathless way at times - deepens quite quickly as Lola's research into the history of one or two of Capri's exiles continues, and takes in adultery, family shame, murder and most of all paedophilia. But although Capri File is a damn fine entertainment, it also excels in its structural cleverness and subtle brushing of issues like the ease (and all we netheads nod solemnly) with which one can become unrealistically intimate so quickly with a complete stranger thousands of miles away while simultaneously becoming alienated from one's quotidian nearest and dearest; and the ease with which these messages, made in haste but read at leisure, can be misinterpreted and at what human cost. It even has a plot where the tin hat is not put on until the very very lastest page.
Sadly most of Amanda Prantera's other ten novels are out of print, so treat yourself to the charms of Capri File (ignoring the hideous cover) and if we can create a groundswell of demand, maybe someone will put her backlist back between covers where it belongs. Particularly that one about Byron and perversion. Dammit, that's a book I want to be a part of.

And here is her fictional output so far, all novels, though the Zoe ones tread the line with lots of short almost discrete anecdotes.

• Strange Loop (1984): "strikingly original, a delight from start to finish" - Evening Standard
• The Cabalist (1985): "an eerie, original talent. Read on, entranced" - Guardian
• Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years After His Lordship's Death (1986)
• The Side of the Moon (1991)
• Proto Zoe (1992): "short, witty, tricky and apposite" - Independent
• The Young Italians (1993): "A wonderfully cool tale of adultery, passion and foreplay" - Observer
• The Kingdom of Fanes (1995)
• Zoe Trope (1996): "irresistible ... belies the weight of the substantial talent which produced it" - The Times
• Letter to Lorenzo (1999): "An elegant novel, part thriller, part romance" - Sunday Times
• Don Giovanna (2000): "a world rich in farce, double-meanings and humour ... delightful" - Glasgow Herald
• Capri File (2001): "a smart, readable tale" - Daily Mail
• Spoiler (2003): "A Da Vinci Code for grown-ups" - Mail on Sunday

 

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Some further thoughts on Amanda Prantera here, which I link to, to save the effort of reposting...

 

[Stewart]

the woman should really be called Amanda Pun-terror

Spoiler (2003): "A Da Vinci Code for grown-ups" - Mail on Sunday

I just finished Spoiler, my first Prantera. And I agree with you on the puns. But, for the most part, especially the Ben puns, they worked within the narrative.

As for the 'Da Vinci Code for grown-ups' claim: I suppose, although there's no big secret hidden from the world. I would place it more in the line of 'a Foucault's Pendulum with less weighty topics and a traditional structure'. It's more a conspiracy (or is it?) sort of novel, shot through with stylistic flourishes that certainly make the woman someone I'd want to read again.