Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Readers expecting rhapsodic prose extolling Italian landscape and cuisine should stick with Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun. Wilde-Menozzi recognizes those attractions but takes little solace from them....[H]er analysis of the perennial tug-of-war between society and the individual is fresh and perceptive." Booklist
Review
"The name Parma signifies a small Roman shield, and during fifteen years in Italy with her husband, a Parma native, the author of this richly absorbing book has experienced the city as an outsider and as a captive. Part autobiography and part travelogue...the book sets out to map a series of long, complex relationships, and it comes to feel like one itself, in which a certain amount of prattle is compensated for by drama, enchantment, and grist." New Yorker