JESS WALTER Beautiful Ruins

J. Walter, the author of six novels, has been nominated for the National Book Award and has been awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Prize.

This book, Beautiful Ruins, 2012 became a New York Times bestseller. The book describes two periods: the 1960s. Italy and today’s Los Angeles.

In the beginning, we were presented Italian Pascual from the seaside of Italy (Liguria) in 1962 sees and meets a sick American actress with a very painful secret at the tiny hotel. How he imagines having somehow invited this actress to himself. 

After years, months of grief, loneliness and waiting for the Americans, he created this woman from scraps of old books and films, from the ruins of his dreams and his epic, prolonged loneliness.

The second storyline presents Clare, who works at a Hollywood film studio. She unexpectedly meets an old man looking for a mysterious woman with whom she has been in contact for a very few days very long ago.

It is the story of a strange human attachment to one place, of faithfulness, truth, and miracles.

An interesting non-banal book that inspires not only to travel to the descriptive coastline of Italy but also to become more interested in the 1960s cinema.

© Fortune, 2009