The Palazzo

The Palazzo, a novel set in Rome, is beautifully-written, insightful, witty, and enjoyable. It involves the inhabitants of the Palazzo Salvini, once the proud Renaissance palace of a cardinal, now split into apartments. The owners and tenants are caught up in the complications of this light-hearted, sophisticated comedy of international fun and games-either remembering or looking forward to better days. There's Caroline Salvini, a beautiful American the perfect wife to dashing Lorenzo-until she suspects he's having an affair; there's Caroline's mother-in-law, the Marchesa, hoping to avert a marital crisis for her son; and there's Randy, an American boy who keeps finding things in his apartment-a girl in his bed, his freaked-out, nomad friends showing X?rated home movies and marijuana fumes. Written in the times of Mr. Ripley, and La Dolce Vita, this book is as contemporary now as it was then. Great lines such as: ?Mrs. Aiken belonged to the sisterhood of women who have chosen to separate themselves from the world by desks,? and ?The whole of the barbarous American colony was of a piece, linked by the terrible chains of democracy they dragged around the world.? Great stuff!