The Medici Boy - Hardcover

"A deeply ambitious novelist, one who isn't afraid of dealing with dark themes and what it means to be fully human, especially in the frightening and ecstatic world we create behind the darkened bedroom walls."
--"New York Times" Book Review
"L'Heureux's efforts to weave myth., extremity, and a religious note into [various] settings are high risk. The result is powerful and original."
--"Los Angeles Times" Book Review

"A writer who picks up his readers by the scruff of the neck and won't let go."
--"Chicago Tribune"

"L'Heureux's efforts to weave myth., extremity, and a religious note into [various] settings are high risk. The result is powerful and original."
--"Los Angeles Times" Book Review

"A deeply ambitious novelist, one who isn't afraid of dealing with dark themes and what it means to be fully human, especially in the frightening and ecstatic world we create behind the darkened bedroom walls."
--"New York Times" Book Review

"A novel bursting with love -- collegial, artistic and erotic. John L'Heureux brings to life the bliss and treachery of the Italian Renaissance through prose as passionate as his characters. Deeply enjoyable, " THE MEDICI BOY" soars like an operatic aria, before breaking our hearts."
--David Henry Hwang, Toby and Obie award winning playwright, of "M. Butterfly", "FOB", "The Dance" and" The Railroad"

"Lust, envy, greed. Pride. Wrath. Set John L'Heureux loose in 15th-century Florence; give him Donatello, Cosimo de Medici, a royal flush of deadly sins, and a boy too handsome for his own good, and watch a master at work, and at play. There is no time and no place and no human transaction that L'Heureux can't plunder to assemble the kind of novel his fans expect, and his fans-to-be have never before encountered. Luminous, intelligent, funny, shocking, and, yes: revelatory."
--Kathryn Harrison, "New York Times" Bestselling Author, "ENVY, THE SEAL WIFE, THE BINDING CHAIR"

John L Heureux, the author of this vibrant novel about the great Italian sculptor Donatello (1386-1466), explains in an author s note how he came to write it: 'On my first visit to Florence I had the exhilarating experience of seeing Michelangelo s David at the Accademia and later that same day seeing Donatello s David in the Bargello. Michelangelo s deeply moved me but Donatello s was a revelation. It was naked in every sense and seemed to me personal, erotic, a testament to the sculptor s sexual obsession for the teenaged boy he had created. Someone, I thought, should write a novel about it.' That someone became L Heureux himself, who over the years has published many highly praised novels. His luminous prose, swift narrative, love of art history and cool eye for human weakness make this one a pleasure to read. Donatello s story is set against the early 15th-century Florentine panorama of creativity, wealth, cruelty, piety and political unrest. In most regards, The Medici Boy is a story about art indeed, genius but it also turns on the grave dangers occasioned by the sculptor s homosexuality (debated by art historians but assumed by L Heureux) in a city where it was punishable by death. The story is told by Donatello s devoted assistant, Luca. Illegitimate at birth, by the age of 17 Luca had discovered both his talent for art and his passion for women. (When the priests warned that he would burn in hell for his lust, he decided to risk it.) At 20, he was hired as an apprentice to Donatello, who was then in his 30s and already a celebrated craftsman in wood, marble and bronze. L Heureux presents Donatello (formally Donato di Betto Bardi) as a man of great sensitivity, a humanist who captures the pain, sorrow and occasional joy of the saints he brings to life. The sculptor is in his early 30s when we meet him, and he has already won the friendship and patronage of Cosimo de Medici, the most powerful man in Florence. It is Medici who commissions Donatello to mold a bronze statue of David, the Biblical conqueror of Goliath, an undertaking central to the novel. The complex process of creating a five-foot, free-standing bronze statue is explained in fascinating detail, but the more urgent drama lies in the sculptor s passion for the boy who becomes his model. Agnolo is 16 and a child of the streets, selling himself to men and sometimes living with a soldier. But the soldier has gone to war, and Agnolo insinuates himself into Donatello s studio, where his beauty and wiles captivate the sculptor. Art historians have long noted how slender, even effeminate, Donatello s David is, particularly in contrast to Michelangelo s later, more heroic marble version. In L Heureux s account, Donatello fashioned his David to mirror the beautiful, vain, difficult boy who had enthralled him. Historians have debated why this otherwise nude David at a time when nude male subjects were virtually unknown in Italian art wore a peasant s hat and a soldier s boots as he stood insolently with one foot resting on Goliath s severed head. As L Heureux tells it, he was thus clad because that hat and those boots were what Agnolo often wore in the artist s studio. Luca is aware of Donatello s attraction to 'comely youths, ' but the sculptor had always been discreet. Now his passion for Agnolo not only throws his studio into disarray but puts the artist in peril. An angry Luca tells us, 'I had no concern for the wretched boy himself; he was vain and stupid and a whore; it was Donato in this new frightening blindness I was concerned for.' Although homosexuality was common in Florence at the time, the penalties could be severe. They began with fines, but repeat offenders could face exile, the loss of a limb or even death by fire. The author provides one long, horrifying scene in which a known offender who allegedly raped a boy is led through the streets, whipped to excite jeering mobs and finally hanged this is considered a mercy before his body is burned. Donatello s passion for Agnolo does not quickly fade. He sadly tells Luca, 'We love where we must, not where we choose.' Inevitably, tragedy results, although not necessarily the one we expect. Yet for all the pain and heartbreak in L Heureux s portrait of Donatello, the artist s work triumphed. You can see it in Florence today or glimpse it on the Internet; and next year you will be able to see a number of pieces by Donatello in a rare exhibition of his work at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City. But you may not fully appreciate his achievement until you read this remarkable novel.--Patrick Anderson "The Instrumentalist, May 5, 2014 ""

"Against the background of the witch hunt against gay men in 15th century Florence, John L'Heureux has built a gripping story of love, genius, and betrayal.," JM Coetzee, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Booker Prize--JM Coetzee

"A tremendous historical tale evoking the creativity and fervour of Renaissance Florence.," The Financial Times--David Henry Hwang

"(L'Heureux's) luminous prose, swift narrative, love of art history, and cool eye for human weakness makes 'The Medici Boy' one pleasure to read.," The Washington Post--Kathryn Harrison

"Intensely appealing, viscerally gripping, and unfailingly human in its characters.," Booklist

"A novel bursting with love...John L'Heureux brings to life the bliss and treachery of the Italian Renaissance through prose as passionate as his characters. Deeply enjoyable, THE MEDICI BOY soars like an operatic aria, before breaking our hearts.," David Henry Hwang, Playwright, M. BUTTERFLY

"There is no time and no place and no human transaction that L'Heureux can't plunder...luminous, intelligent, funny, shocking, and yes: revelatory.," Kathryn Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of ENCHANTMENTS

The worlds of art, politics and passion collide in John L'Heureux's masterful new novel, The Medici Boy. With rich composition, L'Heureux ingeniously transports the reader to Donatello's Renaissance Italy—directly into his bottega, (workshop), as witnessed through the eyes of Luca Mattei, a devoted assistant. While creating his famous bronze of David and Goliath, Donatello's passion for his enormously beautiful model and part time rent boy, Agnolo, ignites a dangerous jealousy that ultimately leads to Agnolo's brutal murder. Luca, the complex and conflicted assistant, will sacrifice all to save the life of Donatello, even if it means the life of the master sculptor's friend and great patron of art, Cosimo de' Medici. John L'Heureux's long-awaited novel delivers both a monumental and intimate narrative of the creative genius, Donatello, at the height of his powers. With incisive detail, L'Heureux beautifully renders the master sculptor's forbidden homosexual passions, and the artistry that enthralled the powerful and highly competitive Medici and Albizzi families. The finished work is a sumptuously detailed historical novel that entertains while it delves deeply into both the sacred and the profane within one of the Italian Renaissance's most consequential cities, fifteenth century Florence.