Jacket Notes: A brilliant sequel to his highly praised ‘Cara Massimina’, Tim Parks' ‘Mimi's Ghost’ is the ultimate comedy of self-justification. A black, black comedy, but full of bright Italian colour, and simply, perversely, hilarious.
Morris can't get over Mimi. Two years ago, the Italian girl eloped with him. But even as Morris turned elopement into kidnap, writing ransom notes and collecting the cash, he was also falling deeply and genuinely in love. So that getting rid of Mimi was more of a punishment than a crime. He had not foreseen it; he would have done anything to avoid it. Only now, resident in Verona and married to the girl's sister, does Morris appreciate how blindly he stumbled into fate's trap. He will never get over Mimi.
But perhaps the poor dead Mimi can't get over Morris. He begins to hear her voice, he sees her reincarnated in Renaissance madonnas. Mimi's ghost seems to be suggesting a road to redemption for Morris: he must help the poor immigrants of Verona, give them work in the family's plonky vineyards--a way of pure political correctness towards a new shriven Morris, a religious Morris perhaps? And if anybody should get in his charitable way, then so much the worse for them...
(© Secker & Warburg)