The Book Guild Publishing has announced the upcoming publication of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” literary novelization by acclaimed writer Gary Davis. The publisher has set April 28, 2023, as the novel’s release date.

“Davis’ “Butterfly” is set after the American Civil War. When a man from Maine becomes a diplomat in Nagasaki, Japan, he befriends a geisha named Cio-Cio and attends her marriage to an American naval officer, Lieutenant Pinkerton. When they discover the marriage is a sham, devastating consequences follow.

In an official press release, Davis states, “There may be a special providence in the fall of a sparrow, but in the fall of a butterfly there can arise over time a play or two, an old novel and some short stories, a hit musical and of course a grand opera. My wife and I first saw ‘Madama Butterfly’ at Lyric Opera in Chicago in the mid-1980s. Since then, we have stayed in love with the music, of course, as well as the contemplative elements of the plot. Now with ‘Butterfly’ there is a new entry, a richly imaginative novel in the form of a memoir. It recasts the basic ingredients of the opera to construct a whole bildungsroman from the point of view of the baritone Sharpless, the American consul who, it seems, has his own American story to tell. Cio-Cio and Pinkerton are still there, to be sure, but so are a host of new characters. Altogether they flesh out the bare bones of the opera’s plot, illuminate unique aspects of Japanese culture, and help make Nagasaki circa 1890 a living, breathing character in itself.”

“Butterfly” is Davis’ debut novel.