Villa Coco

This charming tale of an innocent abroad from Pulitzer winner Greer (Less) doubles as a love letter to Italy. The narrator, Geoffrey, a 21-year-old American college student, lands a job as an archivist for an eccentric Baronessa in Tuscany. Arriving in the fall after his graduation, he’s immediately swept into the magical if unsettling world of his 92-year-old employer. To Geoffrey, the villa “look[s] both like the British Museum and like a child’s bedroom, filled with beloved trash and treasures.” Soon, the Baronessa has him doing everything but cataloging the villa’s contents. Ten hours a day he trims the rose bushes; searches for books and magazines; makes appointments with doctors, masseurs, and veterinarians; and listens to the Baronessa’s endless fantastical tales. Everyone in her life has a story, the young man learns: “They lived in a sealed world of comic-strip logic, and within that world, all schemes ended as happily as a monkey’s life in Zanzibar.” As the months pass, Geoffrey absorbs Italian culture, breaks his vow to avoid romantic entanglements, and faces some tough choices for his future. Throughout, Greer breathes life into the Baronessa and her world and captures its appeal to Geoffrey, fashioning the novel into a box of treasures. This light and airy bildungsroman is great fun. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)