As a long-time fan of Umberto Eco's novels, I was excited to learn a while ago that he was releasing a new one, after reports that he had no intention of writing more fiction. The title especially intrigued me, since I once visited the eponymous cemetery. Eco's fans will recognise many of the novel's themes from his earlier works: conspiracy, theology, identity, historical perspectives on science and philosophy, and lies so detailed and so often repeated that they come to be believed even by their inventors. 
 The main character, Simonini, an Italian forger living in late 19th century Paris, suffers from an apparent split personality disorder following some traumatic event which he cannot recall. The bulk of the novel takes the form of a correspondence or series of diary entries between two of his personas. The dominant persona, Simonini himself, is a consummate bigot. He believes utterly in every cultural, ethnic, and misogynistic stereotype under the sun. "I hate therefore I am," as he puts it. There seems to be no group of people he does not dislike, but he reserves a special level of hatred for Jews. He also comes across as something of a sociopath, more than willing to befriend a man one week and sell him to his enemies or even orchestrate his demise the next. The only thing in the world he loves is food. His every meal is described in loving detail, sometimes including a recipe for some complex dish. 
 The second persona believes himself to be a priest called Dalla Piccola. He acts in part as Simonini's conscience, reminding him of events the dominant persona seems to have willfully forgotten, and chastising him for some of his worst actions. Dalla Piccola is not quite so fervently bigoted as Simonini, but shares his horror at the thought of intimate contact with women. 
 Together, the two personas attempt to untangle their identity and figure out what caused the split by examining their own history, each of them possessing knowledge of events that the other does not recall. Simonini is a thoroughly unsympathetic protagonist, and Dalla Piccola is not really given enough of a personality to make him an interesting character. In some places, an impartial narrative voice steps in to summarise, explain, or speculate when the personas' recollections become confused. 
 The story concerns the roots of modern anti-semitism, and the creation of the document which came to be called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which was later used by the Nazis to justify their treatment of the Jews. The most shocking thing about the novel, and the genius of it, is how much of it is fact, not fiction. Every named character, apart from Simonini, is a real historical figure who said and did all the things attributed to them by the novel. Most readers will recognise such names as Alexandre Dumas and Sigmund Freud, but those with greater knowledge of the period will find many other familiar names and references. For those like me who know less about 19th century European politics and history, it can be difficult in some places to disentangle fact from speculation from outright invention. The novel is also illustrated with relevant images from contemporary publications. 
 Some modern readers may find the blatant bigotry espoused by some of the characters shocking, and may even find it difficult to understand how anyone could ever have believed some of the ideas that in the past were matters of commonly-accepted fact. Eco does a good job of shining a light on the hate, and exposing the inherent ridiculousness of these ideas, to the point where it often seems ironic that the characters cannot see the cognitive dissonance and circular reasoning for themselves. When he is presented with evidence against any of his prejudices, Simonini never questions whether his preconceived notions might be wrong, but instead performs some rather extraordinary mental contortions to explain away the "anomaly". He accepts at face value everything he learns, reads, or is told, and is enraged on the occasions when he discovers he has been deceived, in spite of the fact that he himself is a consummate liar, master forger, and occasional spy. 
 As in Eco's past works, there are few female characters, and those who we do meet are not very well fleshed out. The only female character of any consequence is Diana Vaughn, and the reader spends far more of the narrative hearing about her than hearing from her. I've long held the theory that Eco knows he writes women badly, so avoids writing them as far as is possible. 
 Caveat for readers: there is a brief instance of pedophilia described at one point in the narrative, and a character who confesses to being sexually attracted to children. 
 Overall, I found the book to be an interesting literary exercise and well worth reading, though not as compelling as some of Eco's other novels.