Renaissance Moon

Father Giovanni, a Vatican priest, narrates a story of a bloody new cult of Artemis in Nevins's (Commonwealth Avenue) arty, horrific novel. When Giovanni first meets the glamorous American Selene Catcher in Florence, he is captivated by her beauty and her dazzling knowledge of Italian Renaissance art. Yet, he senses something dark beneath the surface. He learns that, although Selene's mother was a devout Catholic, her father was a Harvard professor whose research into the Eleusinian mysteries led him to worship Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon. Ultimately, the professor offers his infant daughter Selene to the chaste, bloodthirsty deity. As an art history student, Selene becomes perversely obsessed with images of the Annunciation and the Madonna, and equally repulsed by images of erotic fecundity she once adored. Finally, she encounters Titian's The Death of Actaeon. Transfixed by the image of Actaeon hunted down by the merciless goddess's hounds, Selene begins to transmogrify into a modern-day resurrection of Artemis, exhibiting a voracious need for sacrifice and appeasement that leads to heartbreak and horrifying gore. Overripe prose and myriad detailings about Renaissance art and ancient myths tend to muffle the horror here. What might have been a genuinely scary, if implausible, twist on our recent infatuation with goddesses is marred by a precious style and an academic touch that even the narrative's buckets of blood can't wash away. (Apr.)