Bel Canto

Content Warning: The novel recounts a hostage situation with its accompanying psychological stress. It also contains scenes of graphic violence. The term “terrorist” is used throughout to describe the group that takes the hostages, following the author’s lead. The novel invokes stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, and their role as terrorists here is one of these stereotypes. The novel also refers to sexual harassment.

While Roxanne Coss develops as a rounded character in her own right, she also functions as a symbol in the novel. Her celebrity and talent set her apart from the other characters; thus, she becomes the metaphorical vessel for the various desires and dreams, hopes and longings of hostage and terrorist alike. They all view her with awe, as if she were not of the material world: “No one could see her objectively anyway. Even those who saw her for the first time, before she had even opened her mouth to sing, found her radiant, as if her talent could not be contained in her voice and so poured like light through her skin” (32). She glows like a goddess.

Roxanne also stimulates a large amount of lustful longing in the men.