Voices in a Mask - Stories

Based on images of disguise in literature, theater, and opera, this short-story cycle explores themes of identity and subterfuge in a fictional fugue that ranges from comic to poignant. Into the librettos of Don Giovanni, Tosca, Rigoletto, and other operas, Green weaves the authentic biographies of their singers and composers, modern-day settings, and his own imaginative twists. Throughout Voices in a Mask, characters obscure and reveal themselves as art mimics life and life, art. Ultimately the very acts of masking and projecting reveal a truth about the power of art and its inherent deceptions.

"This is a wonderful book... The combination of artistic skill and critical acumen involved is astonishing, and the historical research involved is seriously done and superbly deployed in a creative manner." --Robert Scholes, Brown University

"Geoffrey Green's Voices in a Mask is an operatic tour de force of a 'novel' involving (among other things) grand opera--a subject on which the author is impressively and entertainingly knowledgeable."--John Barth