The Everlasting A Novel
The Everlasting A Novel by Katy Simpson Smith is a reprint edition published by Harper Perennial in 2021, featuring 331 pages in English. This literary work of historical fiction intricately weaves a quadruple love story that spans two millennia, exploring the complexities of love and the moral dilemmas faced by its characters. Set in Rome across four distinct centuries, the narrative delves into the lives of an early Christian child martyr, a medieval monk, a Medici princess, and a contemporary biologist, each grappling with their own struggles and the enduring questions of good and evil.
Readers will find that The Everlasting presents a rich tapestry of human experience, as the characters navigate their relationships and confront the challenges posed by their respective eras. The story examines themes of sacrifice, faith, and the physicality of love, all while being observed by a time-traveling figure who adds a unique perspective to their journeys. As the characters’ lives intersect through time, they each seek to understand their duties to one another and the nature of forgiveness, making this novel a profound exploration of love’s enduring power within the historical context of Rome.
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST HISTORICAL FICTION OF 2020
“Only Katy Simpson Smith could have written a novel of such elegance, emotional power, and grace. The Everlasting, a quadruple love story spanning two millennia, is no less than the story of love itself–its frustrations and thrills, its blunders and transcendent glories. Meraviglioso.”–Nathaniel Rich, author of King Zeno
From a supremely talented author comes this brilliant and inventive literary work of historical fiction, set in Rome in four different centuries, that explores love in all its various incarnations and ponders elemental questions of good and evil, obedience and free will that connect four unforgettable lives .
Spanning two thousand years, The Everlasting follows four characters whose struggles resonate across the centuries: an early Christian child martyr; a medieval monk on crypt duty in a church; a Medici princess of Moorish descent; and a contemporary field biologist conducting an illicit affair.
Outsiders to a city layered and dense with history, this quartet separated by time grapple with the physicality of bodies, the necessity for sacrifice, and the power of love to sustain and challenge faith. Their small rebellions are witnessed and provoked by an omniscient, time-traveling Satan who, though incorporeal, nonetheless suffers from a heart in search of repair.
As their dramas unfold amid the brick, marble, and ghosts of Rome, they each must decide what it means to be good. Twelve-year old Prisca defiles the scrolls of her father’s library. Felix, a holy man, watches his friend’s body decay and is reminded of the first boy he loved passionately. Giulia de’ Medici, a beauty with dark skin and limitless wealth, wants to deliver herself from her unborn child. Tom, an American biologist studying the lives of the smallest creatures, cannot pinpoint when his own marriage began to die. As each of these conflicted people struggles with forces they cannot control, their circumstances raise a profound and timeless question at the heart of faith: What is our duty to each other, and what will God forgive?
Moving back through time from today (The Wilderness) to the Renaissance (The City) to the Middle Ages (The Grave) and finally to Rome under Marcus Aurelius (The Paradise), Tom, Guilia, Felix, and Prisca search and suffer for love in the eternal city, made vivid and familiar as they reappear in each century.
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