"Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories. In “The Boundary,” one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In “P’s Parties,” a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with...

A tale about the fate of those exiled from their houses, relatives, and roots; about the violence of nature and war; and about the strength of women compelled by injustice to defend their children's futures.

Orvieto--its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, and straw-colored wine. And the most famous cathedral facade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues, and mosaics. But as Rick Montoya discovers, this jewel of Umbria can have an ugly side as well. When Rick Montoya moved to his mother's Italy from his father's Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn't expect to...

"The Southern Woman," Spencer's first collection in almost 15 years, restores to print the author's most masterful stories and novellas, including "The Light in the Piazza," as well as 10 new stories.

Over the course of a career that spanned six decades, the southern novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Spencer established herself as one of the finest literary artists of a generation that included Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty. This definitive volume brings together three remarkable novels: The Voice at the Back Door, her powerful masterpiece about racial politics in the world of Jim Crow Mississippi; the beloved classic...