Neighbours' lives entwine disastrously - and the English obsession with Tuscany is satirised mercilessly - in James Hamilton-Paterson’s comic novel.
Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include ‘Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic’ and ‘Fernet Branca Ice Cream’. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters. Who mostly turn out to be male members of her family…
James Hamilton-Paterson
About the Author
James Hamilton-Paterson is often described as a literary loner - a refined prose stylist who, although English-born, has spent most of his life outside the mainstream in the Philippines and Tuscany.