Son of Two Fathers

Grazia dei Rossi #3

by Jacqueline Park, Gilbert Reid (Primary Contributor)

This long-awaited final novel in the bestselling Grazia dei Rossi Trilogy follows Grazia dei Rossi’s only son, Danilo del Medigo, as he returns to the Republic of Venice at the height of Christendom’s persecution of the Jews. April, 1536. Danilo del Medigo arrives incognito in Venice from Istanbul, with two assassins hot on his trail. Western civilization is in crisis. Jews and “New Christians” ― people whose families had converted from Judaism ― are threatened with expulsion, imprisonment, and death. Danilo seeks refuge in the Venetian Ghetto, and promptly falls in love with the beautiful Miriamne Hazan. But soon Danilo is blackmailed into becoming a spy for Venice, which means he must abandon Miriamne in order to save her. The only safe place is hiding in plain sight, so embeds himself within an itinerant group of actors travelling the Italian countryside. With assassins close behind, Danilo, together with a cast of libertines, courtesans, and fellow spies, witnesses the agony of the Protestants warring with Catholics, the Inquisition threatening everyone, and the Ottoman Empire poised to invade the heart of Europe. As fear and panic spread throughout the Jewish communities of Italy, a promise of a new lifeline emerges, and Danilo may be the only one who can ensure it.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Italy

640 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 2019

About the author

Born Jacqueline Rosen in Winnipeg in 1925, she grew up during the harsh years of the Depression. Park has very clear recollections of that uncertain time which left deep scars.

Park is the founding chairman of the Dramatic Writing Program and professor emerita at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Park is an acclaimed novelist, currently working on the third installment of a three-part literary saga that began with The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi, a remarkable 15th-century Italian Jewish woman, and continues with newly published The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi, about the travails of Grazia’s son in the court of the Ottoman ruler, Suleiman the Great.

The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi, published in 1997, became an acclaimed, international bestseller. But Park, then 72, was not finished writing. “I came from television,” she said, “where the motto is: Always leave room for a sequel.”

Park lives in Toronto.

Reviews

[David Calderisi]

The best thing about the best of historic fiction is the way it engages the reader in a great story while at the same time illustrating actual historic incidents and relationships with which the reader might not have been familiar.

With that as a measuring stick, Son of Two Fathers is a major accomplishment. Gilbert Reid and Jacqueline Park have produced a dazzling kaleidoscope of vivid characters and settings that I most heartily recommend as the perfect summer companion for anyone with a taste for adventure and romance. This is a meticulously researched narrative that will both engage you as a great love story as well as throw new light on your appreciation of a stupendous period of human history --- a pivotal time when East and West teetered on the boundary.

The grandeur of the Renaissance in Italy is of course almost impossible to exaggerate --- a breathtaking explosion of the greatest aspects of human creativity wrapped in bizarre and ruthless political skulduggery which was all too often practiced in the name of religion. Perhaps generally less well-known are the intimate connections between the creative ferment in Italy and other European centres at that time, and the richness of goods and ideas arriving from the near and Middle East as a result of the far-ranging trading empire centered in Venice.

Danilo del Medigo is the natural son of an Italian nobleman of the Gonzaga family of Mantua, and Isabella d'Este's beautiful Jewish secretary, Grazia Rossi. Isabella d'Este was the incomparable patroness of artists and thinkers and the intellectual peer of anyone alive in Italy at that time. Danilo and his mother Grazia are captured by pirates as they flee from the ravages of the Spanish-German army that sacked Rome in 1527. Grazia is killed and Danilo is sold into slavery. He is transported to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent where he is ransomed by his legal father, Judah del Medigo, the Sultan's trusted private physician. There Danilo spends his youth and young manhood, first as a page and later as a soldier. He is forced to flee Istanbul when he incurs the hatred of the Sultan’s friend, the Grand Vizier. Intent on finding his natural father, Danilo makes his way to Venice where he takes refuge in the Jewish enclave, the very first ghetto to have been created to keep the Jewish population sequestered from the rest of the city. There he meets the remarkable and ravishing Miriamne, the daughter of the eminent rabbi Hazan. At that time Italy is abuzz with fears and rumours of a Turkish invasion and owing to Danilo's unique knowledge and intelligence of the Sultan’s court he soon finds himself engaged as a spy by the Venetian powers-that-be. And so begins a romance and adventure in the grand tradition.

Son of Two Fathers is the third in a trilogy conceived by Jaqueline Park who wrote the first two volumes. She bequeathed the completion of the third to Gilbert Reid. I haven't read the first two in the series, although of course I now intend to; but I can state with conviction that a lack of familiarity with the first two volumes in no way diminishes the pleasure of this book which is excellently-crafted to stand very confidently on its own.

[Adam Errett]

This book reads very differently than the previous 2 in the series. Characters are one dimensional and often exist to reinforce select traits in the main character which makes the plot feel repetitive. The family characters have less depth than previous books and felt like they were written by a man. Dialogue is drudging and taken up by multiple characters relaying information the reader already knows to different people in a similar tone. This book could have been 200 pages shorter and would still have been hard to finish.

[Lynne Deragon]

Son of Two Fathers
This epic suspenseful love story set in the 1500s in Venice is filled with the dangerously wicked intrigue and counter-intrigue of the times seen through the eyes of our hero, Danilo, as he negotiates his perilous way through volatile political and cultural landscapes, between Venice, Rome, Istanbul, as all of Europe is under threat of the Catholic Inquisition, often meaning death or exile for Jews and "New Christians" - Jews who had ostensibly converted to Catholicism but whose faith was questioned by the Church.

This book is filled with delicious atmosphere, texture, and most importantly, historical context which was most surprising to me. The power of Venice of the 1500s was an eye-opener, far from the benign tourism post-cards of today. The Ottoman Empire was full of surprises as well. The political power plots and alliances between Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Suleiman the Great are fascinating in a world where power and conquest depend on vast armies and naval might. That the Jews and New Christians were given safe harbour by Suleiman in the Ottoman Empire is a surprising fact I learned through this tale.

This book is a rich tapestry of history, intrigue, and, of course, love.
You definitely don’t have to have read the first two books of Jacqueline Park's Grazia Trilogy to enjoy Son of Two Fathers, but it really is a treat to read all three: The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi, The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi, and Son of Two Fathers.

[B.T. Landry]

I agree with the other reviewers of this book, “Son of Two Fathers” can absolutely be read as an introduction to the series, or as a very satisfying stand-alone.

The book opens in 16th century Venice, in the waning years of the extraordinary flowering of human imagination, the Renaissance. A young man, Danilo del Medigo, is a stranger to the city, on the lam, having left everything he has ever known. He is pursued by assassins.

This fast-paced action continues throughout the entire book. It’s an epic adventure, a love story, a spy novel, and a total immersion into a complicated world of competing factions and forces, described beautifully, richly, sumptuously. Here we meet great artists, patrons of the arts, and the defenders of liberty and freedom and culture—and also those driven by fear, small-mindedness and bigotry, who ultimately brought that unprecedented era to its end.

As befitting its subject, this is a deeply human book, with much wit, humour and wisdom. We follow Danilo as he discovers much about the world and himself in a romp around Italy. He learns about the frailty of life, the precariousness of fate, the cruelty of power, and the nature of real bravery in the face of tragedy and change. He discovers friends in strange places. And his search for true family ends in a surprising, hopeful way.

It’s a fun read, but also sophisticated, thoughtful and rich—the kind of book that stays with you. I unreservedly recommend it.

[Gilbert]

This is an extremely intelligent - and favorable - review from The Canadian Jewish News of the novel The Son of Two Fathers. The novel covers the adventurous, romantic, sensual life of Danilo del Medigo from 1536 to 1543, an incredibly perilous and vagabond existence, at the height of the Italian Renaissance and in the midst of a series of political and military crises which will give birth to the modern world. Son of Two Fathers can - absolutely - be read without having read the first two books in Jacqueline Park's Grazia Trilogy; indeed, it is an excellent introduction to the backstories - the incredible life of Danilo's mother Grazia recounted in "The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi" and her son's childhood in Istanbul and on campaign with Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent recounted in the "Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi."

https://www.cjnews.com/culture/books-...

[Denise Jacques]

Son of Two Fathers, by Jacqueline Park and Gilbert Reid, is an exuberant historical novel largely taking place in Venice of the sixteenth century. The action unfolds in a series of fast-moving cinematographic compositions, permitting the reader to be both a viewer and a witness. The pace is relentless, and owing to the clarity of the book’s sentence structure, it is a page-turner. The author is a master at writing dialogue and the interplay between characters is natural and dramatic.
For me, the strength of the book is its capacity to take a complex and elliptic subject as the Renaissance (and the ensuing wars of religion) and explain its defining elements-- the many circulating ideas, the diverse emerging philosophies, and its downright weirdness. While the philosophic underpinnings of the sixteenth century are explored, on the visual level the book has sumptuous physical descriptions of place, decoration, and dress.

[Rebecca E]

Very different from the first 2 books in the series written by Park over many years of research and of writing. I loved those 2 books, but do not recommend this last one-
It was started and conceived by her, I believe, but she died before finishing it, and i suspect that the co-author wrote a lot of it!
But neither the writing, nor the plot, nor the action are anything like in the first 2 books- It feels like the author was writing and inserting passages directly from Wiki about certain situations and events -
Unfortunately, it felt false for a lot of the time, for me anyway.
I would not recommend this 3rd book- It took me forever to read it and I was bored and annoyed a lot of the time....BUT I was totally immersed in the first 2 books and could not put them down.