The Catacombs

A Novel

William Demby

$35

Paperback

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English

Vintage Books
02 December 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Historical fiction

A gripping and genre-defying novel by a rediscovered great of twentieth-century Black American writing, about what it means to be a writer at the dawn of a new era

A gripping and genre-defying novel by a rediscovered great of twentieth-century Black American writing, about what it means to be a writer at the dawn of a new era

First published in 1965, The Catacombs is a metafictional account set in early 1960s Rome, where the author had returned to study art history after serving on the Italian front during World War II.

African-American expatriate Bill Demby narrates his attempts to write a novel about his friend Doris, who is living in Rome and employed as one of Elizabeth Taylor's handmaidens in the filming of Cleopatra. Utterly dependent upon Doris for the development of his novel, he is both a participant in and observer of her life as she enters into an affair with an Italian count. Bill Demby's growing emotional and artistic involvement in the tumultuous affair of his character-friend leads him on an existential quest for the meaning of truth and fiction, both lived and created, in a world torn by the social upheaval of the early sixties.

Interrupted constantly by headlines from television and newspapers, slipping in and out of fiction and metafiction, The Catacombs is a time capsule from an era on the brink and a novel unlike any other.

By: William Demby
Imprint: Vintage Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 132mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9798217007332
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 02 December 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

William Demby was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 25, 1922 and attended college in Clarksburg, West Virginia, before enlisting in World War II and serving in Italy. He graduated from Fisk University in 1947 then moved abroad to Rome, where he spent the next two decades working as a novelist, journalist, and script translator and screenwriter for the Italian cinema. In the late 1960s, Demby joined the faculty at The College of Staten Island, dividing his time between the United States and Italy. His works include Beetlecreek (1950), The Catacombs (1965), Love Story Black (1978), and King Comus (2017). In 2006, he was the recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. He died in Sag Harbor, New York, in 2013. Jeff Biggers is an American Book Award-winning historian, journalist, and playwright. Based part-time in Italy since 1989, he is the recipient of the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year for Travel Writing, a Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, and other honors. Author of ten books of cultural history and investigative reporting, his work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Salon.com, and on National Public Radio and Public Radio International.