Heilige der Trümmer

Gerald Samper #3

by James Hamilton-Paterson

Nichts für schwache Nerven! Eine rabenschwarze Komödie über launische Künstler, moderne Heilige und fragwürdiges Essen

Der Erfolg von Gerald Sampers neuester kulinarischer Invention ist fraglich: Nach dem Genuss einer Feldmaus-Vorspeise verstirbt ein britischer Adliger bei einem Dinner im Freundeskreis. Grund genug für Gerald, von Beruf Ghostwriter, sich beleidigt in die Toskana zurückzuziehen, wo einst sein Haus stand. Dort widmet er sich nicht nur dem Liberetto einer Oper, sondern ebenso hingebungsvoll wie genervt der Vermarktung eines Lady-Diana-Kultes, das auf den Trümmern seines Hauses erblüht. Die Premiere gerät allerdings wegen eines rätselhaften Pinguins zum Fiasko …

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Italy, British Literature, LGBT, Music

284 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

James Hamilton-Paterson is a British poet, novelist, and one of the most private literary figures of his generation. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he began his career as a journalist before emerging as a novelist with a distinctive lyrical style. He gained early recognition for Gerontius, a Whitbread Award-winning novel, and went on to write Ghosts of Manila and America’s Boy, incisive works reflecting his deep engagement with the Philippines. His interests range widely, from history and science to aviation, as seen in Seven-Tenths and Empire of the Clouds. He also received praise for his darkly comic Gerald Samper trilogy. Hamilton-Paterson divides his time between Austria, Italy, and the Philippines and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.

Reviews

[Jacob Sebæk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shrine of the Holy of Holiest …

It has taken a lot of “Ooo Solo Mio“ performed in a not-quite-hitting-the-note falsetto to get there, not to mention guts – a physical feature Gerald Samper is not unwilling to display in a pair of tight designer jeans, if you´ve got it, flaunt it!

This doesn’t mean everything comes easy to Gerald. Moving up from being well above average to fantastic is hard work, not least when the world have set the average line specifically for ghost writers pretty low. However, it is all about ambitions and knowing your true worth and abilities.
This is the case for writing, cooking and all kinds of handywork, but the plan is to excel in one field … opera.

And happy coincidences will be helping Gerald along.
That is if you consider you Tuscan farmhouse taking an irrevocable trip down a ravine as such, but never underestimate the power of a few peasants´ exclamations of wonderstruck awe about the fact that all present in the house at time of the downfall got out unharmed.

Meanwhile in Suffolk, we are witnessing an otherwise well-prepared dinner party falling victim to mouse poison – not Gerald´s fault of course, his field-mouse vol-au-vent was made from the most delicately handpicked field-mice. But one of the party guests with an extraordinary sensitive heart condition doesn´t make it through the dessert …

Tough luck, but nevertheless another happy coincidence to Gerald as it places him back in Tuscany just at the right time after being excluded from the UK kitchen in a way only Mr. Ramsey could have excluded someone.

Meanwhile in Tuscany … by the clever cooperation between a certain real estate agent and a local mayor whose name I will not mention out of fear of retribution, pilgrimage has started to the place where already well-established folklore has it that The Saintly Princess with the Great Legs – not to be confused The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies – showed herself to Gerald warning about the imminent downfall of the farmhouse.

However, annoying the constant coming and going of pilgrims may be, it also offers opportunities, and, in the end, Gerald gets his share of the booty, enabling him to start working of the masterpiece to end all masterpieces, the opera; Rancid Pansies.

There are a lot of silly side stories, and I admit only curiosity as to where everything would go drove me through 2nd and 3rd installment of Gerald Samper´s adventures in Tuscany.
First book, “Cooking with Fernet Franca” was great to it´s genre, whereas the following volumes are only about average.
Still, keeping the pot boiling and populating the books with eccentric and funny characters is some achievement and I am distributing 3 stars.

[Oriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

n.b. Europa: Y'all have got to get a new cover designer. Which actually isn't true, because lots of Europa books have kick-ass covers. But why are you so lame to James Hamilton-Paterson? All three of these books have covers that aren't even ugly; they're just boring and weird and totally not going to get anyone to casually pick up these books. Which is such a shame! Because they're completely amazing.

I don't think I liked this one quite as much as Cooking With Fernet Branca, but it was still terrif. Gerald Samper is just such a multi-dimensional character! He is this snooty Brit who lives in Italy, makes his money ghostwriting biographies of sports stars he despises, fancies himself a master chef and brilliant singer (but is awful at both). He has endless digressions on opera, fashion, food, politics, real estate, religion, and on and on. And he is so funny! In fact, Rancid Pansies definitely takes a turn toward slapstick at parts, and is absolutely hilarious. An early scene has Gerald preparing appetizers for a dinner party: minced lamb with chocolate sauce, liver smoothies, haddock marmalade, and stuffed field mice. Even Gerald's very sophisticated guests (including a very eccentric clarinet player who has come dressed head-to-toe in a gorilla suit) balk at these, er, delicacies, and the polite conversation rapidly devolves into a bout of group projectile vomiting. Here is how the end of this scene is (impeccably!!) described:

I notice the gorilla is particularly under the weather. Presumably the costume's designers overlooked the possibility that its wearer might be overcome by violent regurgitation. No doubt the mouth wouldn't open widely enough and the inner contours of the moulded plastic must be redirecting a good portion of the flow internally. This would explain the lumps of sick pouring from both eyeholes and the luckless clarinettists's frantic but blind attempts with his paws to find the Velcro straps that will release his head.

Bwahahahaha!!! I was reading this on the second leg of a plane ride to California, and laughing so hard that my boyfriend (an avowed non-reader) actually asked to read whatever was so damn funny. And even he laughed!! Oh my god, amazing.

Like I said, I don't think this one was quite as good as the first two; we have a lot more of Adrian than Marta, which is good for moving the plot along, but bad for, you know, having less of Marta. We're sideswiped by a crazy plot involving a cult of Princess Diana, which is funny at first but goes on for too long. We also have (gasp!) no recipes in this book, which is too bad because those were one of the most astonishingly awesome aspects of the first two books.

Ah, but who cares? Holy shit, I don't understand why these books aren't bestsellers. They are totally, totally amazing. I hope James writes me twenty more.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book featured a return to the alternating narrators format of Cooking with Fernet Branca, although instead of giving equal time to Gerry and Marta, Rancid Pansies was a story told by Gerry with occasional interruptions in the form of emails from his lover (Adrian) to a colleague. Adrian's emails (presented in Arial to put us in a computery mood) didn't quite provide the he said/she said hilarity of Marta's letters to her sister, and they were full of gratuitous oceanography mumbo-jumbo, but they did break up the narrative a bit, which would have been useful in Amazing Disgrace.

The writing was once again rollickingly funny, combining hubris with humiliation. The main story of the novel revealed itself a little late, but it involved the world of classical music (opera, specifically), so that was fun for me. I echo my previous recommendation of Cooking with Fernet Branca to all that will listen, and after that you can go ahead and read the rest of the series. I loved every word.

Something I meant to do at the beginning of the series but didn't actually start until this book is to write down all the words I don't know. I still haven't looked them up, but in case I ever get around to it, I'll store them here: odalisque, dint, ecorectitude, helpmeet, palimpsest, derring-do, dosh, poseuse, chary, elide, mise-en-scene, boffins, politesse, priapic, cock-a-hoop, misericord, fetched up, soutane, stoup, catamite, moraine, propinquity, faff.

I thought the scene when Gerry is fixing lunch for Joan and Marta and accidentally drops a felt-tip marker into the soup, leaving a noticeable black trace that he then stirs in to hide, was very consistent with Gerry's character. It showed that he is staunchly himself, stubbornly unchanging despite the disaster he caused in Crendlesham. Obviously he convinced himself that wasn't his fault, as nothing is, either by suppressing guilt or by being genuinely oblivious to the concept of responsibility, and when he had the opportunity to avoid a potential similar disaster (by, say, dumping out the soup) he declined, because if it happened again it would still not be his fault, and that's all that matters.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave the last book in the Samper series 4 stars to make up for the 3 stars I gave for the first two - kinda like giving Al Pacino the Oscar for "The Scent of a Woman" instead of the Godfather movies.

Gerald Samper takes on the legend of Princess Diana (whose anagram is the title of the book) to write a libretto based on her sainthood arising from her intercession whilst his house was faced with imminent desctruction without any injuries in the previous book. Among the sacred cows (not in jellied aspic) sacrificed in this over-the-top satire are royalty, the Catholic church, opera, and Italian bureaucracy and the mob.

There are fewer execrable Samper recipes involving rodents, insects or house pets and a little tighter narrative this time. The odd thing out is the alternate chapters from his boyfriend Adrian writing emails to a colleague talking about oceanography and Gerald. I can't say it doesn't work, since it gives a counterpoint to Gerald's unreliability, but the oceanography bits only seem to be there because the author is interested in it - it has no bearing on the novel.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

in some ways this is the best gerry samper book yet. not enough of marta, but she did get a girlfriend. and Gerry gets to write his opera, to great acclaim. very nice. i heard hamilton-paterson's non-fiction book about oceans is coming out from europa. he's a smart and good author, so it should be interesting. question though, did i miss it, or what WAS the title of the opera, as rancid pansies was just a working title.

[Karlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerald Samper, British ex-pat in Tuscany, was introduced in COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA and continues his witty, outrageous doings here. The characters are over the top and very funny as they solve problems. The loss of his house to an earthquake leads Samper to agree that Princess Di appeared and saved everyone in the doomed house. It becomes zanier thereafter.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book that made me laugh as much as this one is on my 'A' list. I love pretentious Brits who have a way with words. Very silly, a little stomach turning for those of us who aren't keen to eat rodents but all in all a great deal of fun. Nice Tuscan scenery too.

[Pip Jennings · Rating 3 out of 5]

Farcical, acerbic, witty and funny but I liked this the least of the Gerald Samper books. Some of it I enjoyed immensely but then I found myself bogged down in other parts.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first two, but still ripe with delightful lol moments. Definitely don’t read this without at least one of the others, it won’t do the author justice. I look forward to reading more of his fiction.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book in this series is worth reading. The scenarios are outrageous, the language is hilarious. The characters are over the top. You can’t help but laugh out loud.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fun!

[Marianne Mirando · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Hamilton-Paterson's third book about Gerald Samper was laugh-out-lout funny. Gerald Samper's antics, wit, and attitude never disappoint.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rancid Pansies is the third book in the Gerald Samper trilogy, and I hope to Princess Diana that it won't continue on into a fourth book. It's clear that James Hamilton-Patterson (just think how many more books he could see if he dropped the Hamilton!) has run out of steam.

I read this more than two years after reading Gerald Samper's absolutely hilarious debut in Cooking With Fernet Branca. The first book in the series was genius: a riotous send-up of all those "I bought a farmhouse in Tuscany, picked olives, and met the most charming locals, seeing as I'm independently wealthy, and you can too" that flooded the market several years ago after Frances Mayes' really quite good memoir Under the Tuscan Sun was made into a really quite good movie bearing absolutely no relation to the book itself. I really admire writers who manage to not only have film rights to their books optioned but actually get them made into movies when all that the screenplay and book have in common is a title. Money for nothing!

So, the first book in the series is hysterical and I recommend it to absolutely anyone, but especially those who have enjoyed travel memoirs. The second book in the series is fine, but lacks the spark of the first; the third, while still expertly folded in with hilarity, sometimes subtle enough that you have to go back and read a line before you snort with laughter, is something of a letdown. For this reason, I would strongly recommend that you read all of the books in quick succession, so that it feels more like one book than three.

Gerald Samper is a fussy British ex-pat ghost-writer of sports biographies. He also loves cooking with unusual ingredients and singing operas with words he makes up on the spot. There is no great lesson to be learned here; it's simply a character study of this snooty gay man, with a lot of light comic bits. I say "bits," because it's nearly all been done before in the two previous books, and this is more of a retread. The ending is so far-fetched it defies credibility, and the letters of Gerald's long-distance boyfriend to one of his colleagues are an off-putting "tell, don't show" that should have been excised from the book altogether.

I would only recommend this particular volume to anyone who's read the first two and just has to know what else Gerald gets up to, but for everyone else, I'd recommend the first volume and no more. Cooking With Fernet Branca is truly a gem.

[Ken Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I dared hardly stir out of the Belgian's flat for fear of being buttonholed by complete strangers demanding I cure symptoms so disgusting I marvelled they could still be alive. For the first time ever I began to feel a sneaking degree of sympathy for the late Jesus Christ, who must have encountered similar problems-"

In this triumphant conclusion to the hilarious trilogy Samper transcends material concerns such as real estate and income (when his home topples off a Tuscan cliff and his Millie bio sells out) and with the help of Voynovian composer Marta, ascends into artistic heaven. Along the way he leaves a trail of friends literally poisoned by his liberal view of what constitutes food, and the village overrun with Diana fanatics flocking to see the site of her supposed mystical reappearance.

I picked this title up when it appeared in bookstores a few decades ago and enjoyed it, always meaning to read the full series. Having now completed the cycle I admire it more than ever. I read one title in the series each December over the last few years (2022-2024). I was surprised when I finally set about to collect and read them a few years ago that they are out of print. Hopefully they will continue to find readers. These have helped make the most of time off stuck at home, as sadly each year my holiday plans have been waylaid in some fashion by covid or flu. Each title surprisingly sustains the comic effect of Samper's oblivious, self-obsessed character by alternating his voice with those of his friends, such as Marta in the first book and, in this one, boyfriend Adrian.

Samper on Marta's home:
"Given its new-found solitude it even looks faintly desirable. Only I know its fungoid interior will be concealing heaps of unironed laundry and quantities of lethal Voynovian delicacies such as shonka, a sausage that induces paralysis, as well as its owner's flea market cosmetics with names like Randy Minx."

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it a bit of a slow start, but as the narrator’s voice grew on me, I found it always amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny. Gerald Samper is delightfully self-absorbed and oblivious to his real effect on people, yet observant and caustic in his comments about them and about life and the world in general. Some of the humour is ‘punny’ - Buddhist quotation: “Feeling you’re whole is deeply refreshing.” - but this line is used several times and it made me snort each time. The title is an anagram of Princess Diana, one of many in the book, all of them clever and many sharply critical - ‘carbon footprint’ becomes ‘barf tonic, pronto!’ and ‘non-fat octopi’ and ‘Top Fart Icon Born’. Better than the puns, there are comic scenes that will stay with me for a long time - the dinner party that became known as the Great Puke after Gerry’s mouse vol-au-vent turned out to be laced with rat poison, descriptions of scenes in the opera he writes about Diana - esp. the aria where Charles sings about tampons, and the scene where Gerald as librettist is explaining to the diva and the tenor how they should sing their characters straight and sympathetically while letting the music and the lyrics show the irony and the tragedy of the pair. This book is apparently the third about GS - guess I should look up the others to have on hand next time I need some comic relief.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some opening advice: if you haven't read the previous two Gerry Samper books, this one does not stand alone; moreover, I had read the second one a couple of years ago, finding the repeated references to its events a tad frustrating, to the point where I was slightly tempted to go back and re-read the previous novel.

This one didn't strike me as very funny or clever overall, although there were the occasional moments of "this is more what I'd expected!" humor. Every other chapter here consists of emails from Adrian to a colleague, containing "off screen" details of (his take on) events; they became slightly relevant near the end in terms of Adrian's feelings on their relationship. The Gerry-centered chapters seemed, unfortunately, a bit stretched out to get to the finale: a highly satirical opera on the life of Princess Diana (with Marta composing the score). Said musical seemed so ghastly I was hoping someone would actually produce it ... so I could show up and walk out!

Recommended for closure if you've read the first two, though I'd advise folks to lower expectations, as the well of G. Samper hijinks appears to be getting rather low.

[Philipc · Rating 5 out of 5]

James H-P has appeared out of nowhere as an author of comic fiction. His talent is prodigious. The plot is the life and adventures of Gerald Samper, opinionated, queenly, possibly as talented a writer as he believes himself to be, definitely a danger in the kitchen (to those who eat), singer of improbable operatic arias (filched, I suspect, from the instructions on the back of various packages - it sounds so much better in Italian).

There's no point asking about the plot - there hardly is one. Plenty of incident, though. Gerald's caught up in a scheme to canonise the late Princess Diana - all to do with attracting tourists to his remote hilltop village. Then a genuine miracle intervenes, sort of. And there's a disastrous dinner party (strange how much of the Samper series revolves around commensality). But most of all it's the people. And the prose. How pleasant to read about overdrawn characters in elegant prose. Buy it, read it, you can't go wrong outside Salt Lake City.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am very fond of the first book in this wickedly funny series, Cooking with Fernet Branca. In this, the third installment, it was a delight to see Gerry, the main character, finally be realize his dream. But, alas, in the process his character lost much of his unique edge. Exquisite setup however: Gerry's Tuscan villa has fallen over the edge of a cliff (don't ask), but he and his illustrious dinner guests all made it out on time because, as Gerry sarcastically tells the helicopter medic, a vision of Pricess Diana appeared in his kitchen to warn them. Soon Pricess Diana appears to be performing other miracles and what's left of his property is rapidly becoming a pilgrimage site.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hamilton-Paterson keeps this little series fresh by creating a new structure for this third book about Samper: interspersed among the first-person narrated chapters from Gerry are emails from his boyfriend to the boyfriend's former grad student, with a realistic mix of academic and scientific advice and discussion and news and gossip about Gerry and his adventures. Somehow the author manages to keep the farcical qualities of the story while allowing a little pathos here, a little sweet romance there. And I want to see the opera about Princess Di. It sounds marvelous and hilarious and a great stage show.

[Andy Thomis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Final book in the trilogy starting with Cooking with Fernet Branca (best of the three) and Amazing Disgrace (least good). A picaresque centred on a pompous, snobbish, clever, witty, and increasingly gay character, presumably a thinly-disguised self-portrait of the author. One hopes not too thinly, at least as regards his culinary creations, amongst the least adventurous of which is smoked cat (served of course with a pussy fumé). Some lovely set-pieces (explosive group vomiting at a dinner party), very funny jokes and really quite good anagrams (title = Princess Diana). But not quite enough structure to hold it together.

[Marjanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was kind of dumb. I was expecting weird, which it definitely was, but it just wasn't that interesting. I don't think I know anyone remotely like the main character, though I suppose these types of people actually exist somewhere. I really didn't like some of the more graphic descriptions, but they did fit. The author seemed to go a little over board with it. Mostly, I read this and kept waiting for something good to happen but it didn't. I think it was supposed to be funny too. It missed on that as well.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is an anagram for "Princess Diana," who serves as the MacGuffin for this book. I found parts of it hilarious (mass vomiting scene at dinner party) but the plot was rather thin and nowhere near as entertaining as the first in this series, "Cooking with Fernet Branca." Still, I love Hamilton-Paterson's dry British humor and the outrageousness of his main character, Gerald Samper. One of these days I'll get around to reading the second in the series.

[Max Fincher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The curmudgeonly misanthropic ghost writer, Gerald Samper, draws you into his mad world of an amateur opera about "Saint" Princess Diana, parochial Italian feuds over his dilapidated Tuscan villa and dinner parties where the guests he seeks to impress are inadvertently poisoned by his mouse vol-au-vents. A very entertaining read and some wonderful laugh-out-loud moments. The parody of "Goodbye England's Rose", Diana's commemorative song sung by Elton John, is simply hilarious!

[Jean]

the third in a series about a british ex-pat in tuscany, complete with recipes (liver smoothie, haddock marmalade, gun-dog pate)and a shrine princess diana on an italian hillside. Not quite as funny as the first (cooking with fernet-branca), but better than the second (amazing disgrace)

[Charlaralotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never finished this book as was overwhelmed by incredibly strong voice of the narrator. Felt like I was spending time with a very funny and exceedingly manic personality and got exhausted. Nevertheless, for those who are stronger, think there would be many more hilarious gems in here.

[Noni · Rating 3 out of 5]

A master of the absurd. Used the same literary technique as found in the first book of this series in that he has two narrators alternating chapters. First time it worked, this time it didn't as the character wasn't as interesting as Marta.

[Kjetil]

The third year in a row I've read a volume in this trilogy while vacationing on the Ligurian coast, not too far from where the plot tales place. And it's as roaringly funny as the first two. Why isn't anyone making a TV series out of this?

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is sooooo funny. Even better than Cooking with Fernet Branca.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite funny. Who would think an author could pull off the cannonization of Princess Di as a credible plot device?

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of the trio of hilarious book, in my opinion.