Eugenio Volpe, I, Caravaggio, with John Milas and Tamara Jerée

ABOUT the BOOK: The famous bi-sexual libertine who would be more at home on Tinder than at a Roman Cathedral, gallivants through the streets like brush strokes to become a Baroque 16th century icon. The year is 1604 and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is a superstar, his blockbuster paintings packing the pews of Rome. Caravaggio should be reveling in prosperity, but the artistic trailblazer and nefarious street-brawler is his own worst enemy. While the genius paints masterpieces, the ruffian in him can’t stay out of jail. Caravaggio is a man at existential odds with himself until falling in love with Lena Antognetti, the prostitute modeling his newest Virgin pictures. Caravaggio paints Lena into a life of wealth and celebrity, but the power couple’s provocative fame earns them a horde of resentful and jealous enemies. I, Caravaggio dramatizes the superstar’s psychological unraveling under the sexual and political pressures of the Catholic Reformation.

ABOUT the AUTHOR: Eugenio Volpe is a winner of the PEN Discovery Award in Fiction who spends half his time in the water and the other half immersed in 17th-century art history scandal. His debut novel I, Caravaggio (CLASH Books) is a modernized portrayal of the baroque master’s turbulent launch into superstardom. Volpe’s writing can be found in Gulf Coast, the Massachusetts Review, Hobart, New York Tyrant, and elsewhere. His essay “Jesus Kicks His Oedipus Complex” was a notable in Best American Essays 2021. Volpe’s scholarly interests include critical theory, narrative design, and rhetoric. He teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and surfs somewhere between Second and Third Point Malibu. He lives near the beach with his wife and son. For more, visit: https://www.eugeniovolpe.com/

John Milas is the author of the debut novel The Militia House. He grew up in Illinois and served in the Marines before studying creative writing at Illinois and Purdue. His short fiction appears in The Journal, Superstition Review, XRAY Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. Learn more at johnmilas.com.

Tamara Jerée (they/them) is a graduate of the Purdue University MFA Program and the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Their short stories have appeared in the Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthologies Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness and Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology. Their poem “goddess in forced repose” in Uncanny Magazine was nominated for the inaugural Ignyte Award. They’ve worked as a writer in the video games industry and as an indie bookseller. The Fall That Saved Us is their debut novel.