Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of seven works of fiction, including Pulitzer Prize winner Less and its companion Less Is Lost. He is the recipient of the Northern California Book Award; the California Book Award; the New York Public Library Young Lions Award; the O. Henry award for short fiction; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. Greer lives in Venice, Italy.
“No one writing in English is funnier or more charming than Andrew Greer.” –David Sedaris
Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer showcases his wit, sophistication and deep knowledge of focaccia in this magical and madcap tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic elderly baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills.
Heartsore, broke, and directionless, our young man (the chosen moniker of Villa Coco‘s narrator) takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant (technically, the employment ad asked for “adjutant”) to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco, a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown. Technically, our young man is an archivist, charged with cataloguing Coco’s extensive and eclectic collection of art and artifacts, but what are his actual duties? He is charged with ridding the house of a marten, whatever that is, locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco’s great and final plan—to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late.
Told with the signature wit, insight and deeply felt humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself—a romp through a youthfully self-constructed emotional obstacle course, a meditation on what we give and take from others, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who you’ve always wanted to be.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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