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Cry to Heaven

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About this listen

 In a sweeping saga of music and vengeance, the acclaimed author of The Vampire Chronicles draws readers into eighteenth-century Italy, bringing to life the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius. This is the story of the castrati, the exquisite and otherworldly sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices win the adulation of royal courts and grand opera houses throughout Europe. These men are revered as idols—and, at the same time, scorned for all they are not.

Praise for Anne Rice and Cry to Heaven

“Daring and imaginative . . . [Anne] Rice seems like nothing less than a magician: It is a pure and uncanny talent that can give a voice to monsters and angels both.”—The New York Times Book Review

“To read Anne Rice is to become giddy as if spinnning through the mind of time.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“If you surrender and go with her . . . you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream.”—The Boston Globe

“Rice is eerily good at making the impossible seem self-evident.”—Time©1982 by Anne O'Brien Rice; (P)1991 by Random House, Inc. Fantasy Genre Fiction Horror Psychological

Critic reviews

Praise for Anne Rice and Cry to Heaven

“Daring and imaginative . . . [Anne] Rice seems like nothing less than a magician: It is a pure and uncanny talent that can give a voice to monsters and angels both.”—The New York Times Book Review

“To read Anne Rice is to become giddy as if spinnning through the mind of time.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“If you surrender and go with her . . . you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream.”—The Boston Globe

“Rice is eerily good at making the impossible seem self-evident.”—Time
All stars
Most relevant
it's a shame it was abridged. I've read the full book and it loses depth in the abridgement, beautifully read though.

Abridged.

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I'm a musician and very hard to please. I found this book by accident. I've recommended it to everybody I think could reach it. It's wonderful... truly wonderful.
It's the searingly moving and intricately informed story of the no-longer-tolerated 'production'(sic), practice and humanly demanding life of a castrato singer. I say no more.
Other books which have attempted to enter such culturally particular spheres have won big prizes. But I have never come across one which doesn't just skip the hard reality of such a life itself in favour of the bits of stories that inevitably attach to it. (Not that such stories do not also attach to the hero of 'Cry to Heaven'.) This book skips nothing.
It's a genuine masterpiece.
And it's been driving me mad, because all I've been able to find by Anne Rice to date is a load of vampires! I'll have another try now. I can't imagine I'll find anything, but if I do I know it can't be as amazing.

The best 20th. century novel I've ever read

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Wasn't what I was expecting, required some emergency censorship as my children were around! Tim Curry is perfection!

Truly operatic tale.

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This is my favourite Anne Rice book and seeing it was read by Tim Curry I snapped it up as he has a voice to die for. Sadly, this version has had the heart torn out of it. I mean there's abridged and then there's this hatchet job. None of the joy and passion and sorrow of the book remains, despite Tim's wonderful reading. Just read the book yourself.

Don't bother

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