Saving Rome - Softcover

Williams, Megan K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1897187033 ISBN 13: 9781897187036

Publisher: Second Story Press, 2006

Synopsis

Nine funny and insightful stories that delve into the lives of women searching for meaning (and survival) in an ancient metropolis awhirl in honking Fiats, smouldering cigarettes and teetering high heels.

About this title

Review

Williams effectively conveys the voices of very different protagonists. - McGill Alumni Magazine - 20060501

Tender-hearted and amusing first collection providing fresh angles on displacement, relationship ennui and disappointed expectations. - NOW Toronto - 20060529

Like a postcard from a friend with "Wish you were here" scrawled on the back. Save the airfare and read this book instead. - Quill & Quire - 20060401

Saving Rome has been billed as a book about the expatriate experience in Italy, but it's about much more than that. - The American - 20060501

Williams's stories are so vivid I was certain at first that they must be autobiographical. - Ottawa Citizen - 20060409

...unlike many other novels or short stories compiled by vigorously intelligent journalists - Megan is not boring. - Here Weekly (Fredericton) - 20060501

Riveting and funny. William's skill with dialogue, with the tempests it alternately contains and releases, is consummate. - The Globe and Mail - 20060225

Synopsis

Megan K Williams, a Rome-based writer and correspondent, knows just how far. In her debut collection, Williams serves up the Eternal City as you've never seen it before, turning an insider's eye on the love, mystery and unholy chaos of Rome. In nine funny and insightful stories, Williams delves into the lives of women searching for meaning (and survival) in an ancient metropolis awhirl in honking Fiats, smouldering cigarettes and teetering high heels. Piercing, quirky, hilarious and heartbreaking, "Saving Rome's" women are trapped in a new-millennium Roman circus side-show.One follows her husband to Italy only to become obsessed with an eccentric pet-shop owner. Another, a rattled mother, gives a carabiniere officer the finger over a parking dispute, and is horrified when he trails her home. Not to mention the jilted innamorata who pushes her tour-guide host to the thin edge of sanity. As these ex-pats' illusions of Italian life unravel, so do their ideas about themselves and those closest to them. And as they struggle to bridge the gap between home and Rome, between the familiar and the inexplicable, they do so with awkward, imperfect and profoundly touching grace.

Edition details

• Publisher: Second Story Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1897187033
• ISBN 13: 9781897187036
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224