Book review: When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope
Easthope’s memoir of her experiences as a disaster manager is ‘gripping and filled with compassion’

We tend to think of the 18th century Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova as an “irresistible rake”, said Laura Freeman in The Times. But according to Leo Damrosch, professor of literature at Harvard, the “charming seducer” wasn’t “that charming at all”. Casanova, he argues in this insightful biography, was a serial “abuser” whose behaviour was disturbing even by the standards of his day.
Most of what we know about Casanova comes from his “hugely priapic autobiography”, Histoire de Ma Vie, which he left behind to be published after his death in 1798, said Kathryn Hughes in The Guardian. He maintained that he never resorted to violence or coercion – and that his enjoyment of sex depended on the enjoyment of his partner – but Damrosch points out how “dodgily self-deceiving” this argument was, given the “brutal power dynamics in play”. Casanova often slept with “very young girls” who were, in effect, prostituted to him by their parents. He refused to wear a condom – or, as he put it, “envelop myself in a dead skin”. One episode in his youth, Damrosch writes, was unquestionably “gang rape”.
Although “appalled” by his subject’s behaviour, Damrosch admits to finding him captivating, said Gregory Dowling in The Wall Street Journal. Casanova travelled all over Europe, and “met everyone”, from serving maids, prostitutes and nuns to “great writers and ruling monarchs”. He recorded these meetings in his autobiography, which he wrote in “lonely old age”, when he was impotent and losing his teeth, and it remains a “remarkable” portrait of the society of his day. The “great virtue” of Damrosch’s book is that, while never losing critical distance, he captures what it was about Casanova – his “vivid presentness” and “eagerness” for life – that makes us want to keep reading about him.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Yale University Press 432pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
October 13 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
-
Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?
Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
-
The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being released
The Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly Cooper
In the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ show
The Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homes
Feature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thriller
The Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern Afghanistan
The Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopic
The Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
-
Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decade
The Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
-
Southern barbecue: This year’s top three
Feature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more