An exhilarating novel of romance, art, and food in Florence, featuring the beloved Margot Harrington, who graced Robert Hellenga’s The Sixteen Pleasures.

Margot Harrington’s memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica — and the misguided love affair it inspired – is now, 25 years later, being made into a movie. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course their script is not used, but never mind — happy endings are the best endings for movies, as Margot eventually comes to see.

At the former convent in Florence where The Sixteen Pleasures — now called The Italian Lover – – is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art, and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.