The famously insatiable lover is brought brilliantly to life in this lively, suspenseful debut novel by Abrams (coauthor of The Multi-Orgasmic Couple; The Multi-Orgasmic Man). Framed as Don Juan's long-guarded diary, the narrative picks up at a gallop and never relents, tracing Don Juan's orphaned upbringing at a convent and torturous monastery before he escapes and joins a band of thieves. He is soon introduced to the Marquis, who trains the then amateur Lothario to become equally adept at swordsmanship and seducing women. (Abrams's background in Taoist sexuality is evident in the latter's scenes.) Don Juan develops a reputation as "some kind of demon," but the Marquis, who is close to the king, protects Don Juan from the inquisitor general's plans to punish him. Nevertheless, Don Juan resists the Marquis's plea that he marry to save himself, claiming he has no interest in love—until he meets pistol-packing firebrand Doña Ana. Abrams renders his hero with sympathetic understanding, and his erotic exploits—though heavy on plumage ("I sipped the moist nectar of her mouth as she opened her petals to me")—round out Don Juan instead of providing one-handed reading material. The story unspools with the invigorating trajectory of a thriller and the emotional draw of historical romance. (May)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
Narrated by Scott Brick
Douglas Carlton AbramsUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
Narrated by Scott Brick
Douglas Carlton AbramsUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
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Overview
It was a time of discovery and decadence, when life became a gamble and the gold that poured endlessly into the port of Sevilla devalued money, marriage, and love itself. In the midst of these treacherous times, Juan Tenorio is born and then abandoned in the barn of a convent. He wants nothing more than to be a priest, until he falls in love with one of the sisters. When their affair is discovered, Juan leaves the Church forever. He is soon recruited to be a spy by the powerful Marquis de la Mota, who teaches him to become the world's greatest libertine and seducer of women.
It is after knowing countless women that Don Juan is convinced by the Marquis to keep a diary, and it is here within its pages that he reveals his greatest adventures and the Arts of Passion he mastered. But what finally compels him to confess everything is the most perilous adventure of all-the irresistible fall into the madness of love with the only woman who could ever make him forget all others.
The Lost Diary of Don Juan is not only a triumph of literary imagination but a deliciously sensual exploration of the secrets to undying love. At once a profound meditation and daring adventure, this novel brings to life one of history's most notorious and alluring individuals with depth, intelligence, and delight.
Editorial Reviews
For his first novel, a former University of California and HarperSanFrancisco editor tries on the life of Don Juan. Foreign rights have proliferated. With a seven-city tour; Book Club Reader feature. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
The life and times of the legendary seducer, here imagined as a historical character whose diary has come into the possession of "editor" Abrams. It's not entirely a departure from the New Age-inflected nonfiction considerations of "love, sexuality, and spirituality" co-authored by Abrams (The Multi-Orgasmic Couple, 2002, etc.). For this Don Juan is an intellectual libertine given to debating the legitimacy of sexual experience with the women who enchant and gratify him, and with agents of the Spanish Inquisition. Juan grows to manhood in the latter years of the 16th century, during Spain's Golden Age. In his own suave, measured voice, we learn of his upbringing in a convent (after his unmarried mother had abandoned her infant), brief tenure in a monastery and commitment to a life of sensual pleasure and robust adventure-as a member of a jovial gang of robbers, and the tool of Machiavellian Marquis de la Mota (who employs Juan's bedroom expertise to cuckold and embarrass his political enemies). In a brisk narrative that nevertheless consists less of developing action than of multiple repetitions of essentially similar episodes, two themes are emphasized: Juan's heartfelt opposition to the Inquisition's punitive malevolence, and his genuine love for Do-a Ana, the beautiful noblewoman threatened with an unwanted marriage (to the aforementioned Marquis). Period detail is deftly handled, and the story is nicely fleshed out with vivid supporting characters (e.g., a randy Duchess who justifies her dalliance with Juan by pretending he is her absent husband; a legendary courtesan who equals him in skill and appetite; and Juan's ingenuous coachman Cristobal, who utters the novel's plaintive finalwords). And the sex scenes are juicy, if occasionally risibly florid. Perhaps not a novel to be loved, but a dependably entertaining one. Agent: Heide Lange/Sanford J. Greenburger Associates
These are the passionate, swashbuckling confessions of the world's greatest lover. Actor Jonathan Davis jumps on Don Juan's favorite horse, Bonita, and gallops through these amorous and political adventures, set in Inquisition-plagued Spain, to prove that "a woman's chastity is the most difficult thing to protect." Davis's portrayal of Don Juan could have used a bit more of a Hispanic intonation, but, overall, he delivers the revelations with zest, sexy innuendo, and a curious blend of physical expertise and soulful naïveté. His minor characters are well done, too. Don Juan's beloved Dona Ana throbs with contralto vibrations; his benefactor and rival, the Marquis, is sympathetic, but sinister; and the Inquisitor reeks of evil. The pace is relentless, with a dynamic climax. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171873530 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2007 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
An Account of the True Arts of Passion and the Perilous Adventure of LoveBy Douglas Carlton Abrams
Atria
Copyright © 2007 Douglas Carlton AbramsAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9781416532507
Chapter One: Rumors and Lies
I write in the naked pages of this diary so that the truth will be known and my fate will not be left to the rumors and lies already whispering through the streets of Sevilla. Many, I am sure, will try to turn my life into a morality play after I am dead, but no man's life is so easily understood or dismissed.
I would not risk inscribing my secrets in this diary had I not been convinced to do so by my friend and benefactor, Don Pedro, the Marquis de la Mota. I argued that nothing I would write could be circulated in my lifetime without my being condemned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and burned at the stake. The Inquisitor himself branded this danger into my imagination just yesterday. Perhaps it is this fresh threat, or the ultimatum of the King, that has at last caused me to pick up this quill and ink these words. The Marquis insisted that it is for posterity that I should write this diary, one's reputation being the only true immortality. But it is hardly vanity alone that causes me to write.
Thirty-six years have passed since my birth, or more correctly since my mother left me, a swaddled bundle, in the barn of the Convento de la MadreSagrada. It is no doubt a sign of my advancing years that I have been persuaded for the first time in my life to consider how I will be remembered. Yet there is another desire that leads me to write in this diary. It is to pass on what I have learned about the Arts of Passion and of the holiness of womanhood. Since I have forsworn matrimony and have no heirs of my own blood, I must look to all who follow as my descendants and try to share with them what I have learned from the women I have been privileged to know so well.
A man's recollections always tend toward self-flattery, so I will not rely on my testimony alone and will instead write, as faithfully as possible, not only the events but the words themselves that were shouted during a duel or whispered during a passionate embrace.
It is this same pride that leads me to begin my account with the most daring seduction I have ever undertaken. My ambition was nothing less than to free the King's chaste and lonely daughter from her imprisonment in the royal palace of the Alcázar -- for a night. I knew that if I were caught, it would be my privilege as a noble to place my head on the executioner's block and avoid the shame of the gallows.
A man's ambition, however, like his fate, is not always known to him in advance, and as I left the arms of the Widow Elvira, I had no hint of the danger that I would embrace last night.
Copyright © 2007 by Idea Architects
Continues...
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