In Calabria

I am a long-time, unabashed fan of Peter S. Beagle. I first read The Last Unicorn in the summer of 1968. My original copy of the book is older than my husband. I've lost track of how many time's I've read it. I read it for comfort, for hearts-ease, and to revisit old friends. I've enjoyed most of Beagle's other books too. Here's another unicorn book of his. But it's mostly about finding love and wonder and a bit of redemption at any age. I agree with another reviewer that Bianchi seems older than the story tells us he is, but that didn't distract me from the story. Beagle has a way of writing about the way wonder and unexpected beauty can strike deep into the heart that I find very affecting. It's lovely. This is a small, lovely book, and I recommend it.

Oh Peter S Beagle... once again you have written a story that normally I would have no interest in and managed to make me love it. In Calabria is about unicorns, so fans of The Last Unicorn will probably jump on it. However, I should warn readers that the two books are quite different. The Last Unicorn is a more traditional fantasy, and In Calabria is a magic realism story where unicorns most certainly exist, but the world is ours with little bit of magic. That being said, it's still an excellent book and very representative of Beagle's more contemporary writing. The story starts on a farm in Calabria, Italy. Our protagonist is Claudio Bianchi, a 47 year old farmer. His life is stable and ordinary until one day a unicorn takes up residence on his land so that she can give birth. Her existence is a secret that Claudio protects carefully, but it's hard to keep such things hidden forever, and Claudio's farm begins to draw a lot of attention. Some of the people who start snooping around for the unicorn are not the nicest of persons, and Claudio finds that he and his loved ones are in a lot of danger over his desire to protect the unicorns... So, as said, the plot is a lot less fantastical than Beagle's most famous work, but if you enjoyed Summerlong (which is excellent!), than In Calabria will be a fun read as well. It's a slow novel, as most of Beagle's are, but he delivers quite a lot of suspense at the end. The final scenes with the unicorns deliver a nice dose of magic to the quiet tale, and the writing is wonderful. The story is short (novella length), but it fits the form excellently. There is one aspect of the book that I think deserves some conversation. Giovanna is in her early 20s, so her relationship with Claudio features a rather significant age gap. This type of May-December match-up has appeared a couple times in Beagle's work and... it's a trope that can easily be gross. In Calabria, however, manages to avoid being icky. At no point is Claudio portrayed as anything other than himself, a stocky, old farmer with a poetry hobby and a lot of flaws. He's not romanticized, and Giovanna is never portrayed as a prize that he's won. She's the instigator of the relationship, and there's no weird power dynamic between the two. I would be happy to see this particular trope not appear in future writings, but I wasn't overly bothered by its presence here. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Books for the ARC for review purposes!

Honestly, just disappointed by this book. About half-way through, it stopped being about the unicorn and was more about the love interest. Definitely not what I was reading this for. Bad use of my favorite piece of art, in my opinion. Full review: https://leyreads.wordpress.com/2016/1...

This was such a sweet and whimsical story. I loved Claudio and his relationship with Las Signora. It was so heartwarming to watch them bond. The story moved a bit too slow for my taste at times and I had a hard time following exactly what was happening (or, not happening). Even though this is a relatively short book. I took a bit longer to read it because I occasionally lost interest. But I still really liked the sweet, magical feel and enjoys most of the story. I immediately felt a connection to grouchy old Claudio and my heart went out to him as he struggled to deal with all that life had thrown his way. I had a harder time bonding win some of the other characters though, so I wasn't quite as invested in what became of them. Overall, I'm really glad I read this book. It's a slower book, but still so beautiful and sweet. Definitely worth a read! Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publishing for providing this book in exchange for an honest review,