Nocturnes for the King of Naples
(1978)
A hauntingly beautiful evocation
of lost love, Nocturnes
for the King of Naples has all the startling, almost
embarrassing, intimacy of a stranger’s love letters. The
intense emotional situation envelopes the reader from the
first page; like images in a dream, White’s characters are
the most real people we know, though they remain phantoms.
Each chapter, each nocturne, is set in a different emotional
key, but all are interconnected through such subtle modulations
that the final effect is devastating.
