Who Owns Your Stories?

 

Jan is a professor at at small college in Pennsylvania. She writes historical fiction and because of her fascination with Mussolini she rents a small apartment in a villa in Tuscany for the summer. Here she meets Beatrice, also a professor at at college in the US. Her family has ties to the villa for generations and she spends her summers there

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Beatrice and Jan meet, discover interests in common, and spend time with each other sipping wine as Beatrice talks of her fascinating family history. Jan is enraptured by the stories and says how much she would like to write them. At one point, Beatrice says, I give it to you.

The women stay in contact. Jan makes more visits to the villa. Then when Beatrice is nearing eighty, Jan decides it’s time to write the book. The question is whether Beatrice still wants to share her family history.

This is a leisurely book with lots of fascinating stories and descriptions of sights in Tuscany. It was like having a delightful holiday. The author does and excellent job of bringing the area to life. The story of Beatrice’s family is not told chronologically when makes it somewhat confusing, but he stories are so interesting it doesn’t matter.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was saved from being a travelogue by the interesting question of who owns your stories.

I received this book from Doubleday Books for this review.