Overview

On a tiny piazza in an obscure Italian hilltop town, circa 1933, remarkable things are happening. From the window of his mother's bakery a young boy, Niccolò, sees it all: a pickpocket who purloins human emotions; a beggar who summons the voice of God from the town well; two young lovers whose passion changes history; a blind silent-movie accompanist. An exotic princess held captive in the local nunnery, a blackshirt bent on revenge and, hovering over all, the looming shadow of fascism and Benito Mussolini. In The Piazza: Stories from Piazza Santa Caterina Piccola citizens of this unexpected and improbable place find themselves bound together by their hopes, their lies, their humanity and their destiny, unbowed in the face of onrushing war and certain catastrophe. It's a heartwarming, heartbreaking, always funny, sometimes tragic, fantastical love song to a time and place that no longer exist - if in fact they ever existed at all.

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Reviews

The Piazza is a delight. These tales evoke the magic of Calvino's most beguiling works and the conscience-searing observations of Joyce's Dubliners. There's humor and wisdom in these stories, and beauty too, and - delivered so deftly you don't see it coming - the hard punch of history. - Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink, winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the John Gardner Fiction Award The stories mix together like the colors in an artist's palette: funny and subversive, ironic and touching. It's an Italian romance, sparkling with light and color, filled with unexpected characters and improbable victories - as, all the while, tragedy and sorrow lurk in the sunlit shadows. It's radiant with enchantment. I loved it. - Michael Dinner, Emmy Award winning director and producer of Justified and The Wonder Years

"""The Piazza is a delight. These tales evoke the magic of Calvino's most beguiling works and the conscience-searing observations of Joyce's Dubliners. There's humor and wisdom in these stories, and beauty too, and - delivered so deftly you don't see it coming - the hard punch of history. - Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink, winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the John Gardner Fiction Award ""The stories mix together like the colors in an artist's palette: funny and subversive, ironic and touching. It's an Italian romance, sparkling with light and color, filled with unexpected characters and improbable victories - as, all the while, tragedy and sorrow lurk in the sunlit shadows. It's radiant with enchantment. I loved it."" - Michael Dinner, Emmy Award winning director and producer of Justified and The Wonder Years"

Author Information

BOB BRUSH is an Emmy Award winning writer-composer and Executive Producer of ABC's The Wonder Years, for which he also received Peabody and Humanitas Awards. He wrote and produced the CBS hit series Early Edition and ABC's Karen Sisco, as well as adapting the novels The Prince of Tides and Scruples for television. Brush was the Pitchpipe of the 1969 Yale Whiffenpoofs, and composed the score for the Broadway musical The First, about baseball immortal Jackie Robinson. He lives in Hudson, NY with his wife, actress/writer Mel Harris. Their four children live all over the place. The Piazza: Stories from Piazza Santa Caterina Piccola is his first novel. SCOTT HOWARD lives in New Orleans with his wife Janet and is currently at work on a series of paintings entitled ""Sixty Frames in Search of an Artist.""

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