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It’s also one heck of a way for Rubin to announce his own presence on the literary stage. “The Poser,” as it follows Giovanni from triumph to perilous triumph, seduces you with its fanciful prose, its larger-than-life characters and its fun-house-mirror take on a land of opportunity where appearance often trumps reality.
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Was Mama, with all her encouragement, helping him or sabotaging him? And is impersonation really the best way to understand “the insides of another person”? Rubin’s most daring narrative move comes in the final quarter of the book, when Giovanni, with the help of the calm and canny Doctor Orphels, tries to get to the bottom of who he is and what makes him tick. As soon as he meets people, he feels the urge to become them. And it doesn’t take long to divine that there’s something unsustainable about his act. Giovanni Bernini, the narrator of Jacob Rubin’s wonderful debut novel, is both a mirror and a sponge. There are bumps along the way, including Giovanni’s frustration at his inability to master the thread of Lucy Starlight, an alluring chanteuse who becomes his lover. Later, he’s even lured into the world of politics, where he’s far more invested in rhetorical style than in any actual ideas. With the help of theatrical entrepreneur Bernard Apache, “the man who would ruin my life,” Giovanni is catapulted further to screen stardom. Her boy’s only problem, as she sees it, is that he’s “sympathetic to the bone.” Mama shares her son’s fascination with the “thread.” However, there’s a lot about her own life - including the whereabouts of her husband - that she withholds from him.Īfter Giovanni is discovered by a grubby but effusive talent agent, he swiftly goes from school troublemaker to major theatrical draw in a city resembling Manhattan. But he had an ally who came to his rescue every time: his beloved Mama. “Gestures are a costume,” he says, and every guise contains what he calls a “thread.” “Pulled by the right hands,” he asserts, “it will unravel the person entire.”īack in high school, Giovanni’s urge to ape everyone around him used to land him in detention. As it opens, we learn that Giovanni has made a stage career of his eerie talents. Rubin sets “The Poser” in an alternative United States (never named) in what feels like the 1950s. The result is a slippery meditation on the nature of identity delivered with vaudeville verve. But try looking for the real Giovanni behind all the voices and postures he assumes and you’ll soon be as lost as he is. His imitations can be both a form of flattery and an act of insult. Giovanni Bernini, the narrator of Jacob Rubin’s wonderful debut novel, is both a mirror and a sponge.