Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Marco Chronicles: To Rome, without love
    The Marco Chronicles: To Rome, without love
    The Marco Chronicles: To Rome, without love
    Ebook35 pages41 minutes

    The Marco Chronicles: To Rome, without love

    By Elizabeth Geoghegan

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Get ready to have all your illusions of the glamorous Italian expat life shattered in this hilarious, irreverent memoir of a young American woman's romantic (or rather, unromantic) misadventures in the eternal city. Handsome, charming Roman men; perfectly made cappuccino and risotto; breathtakingly beautiful antiquities and that incomparable Italian light—none of these are perhaps quite as idyllic as they might seem to the casual traveler. With a jaded eye but an always vulnerable heart, Geoghegan gives us the anti-Eat, Pray, Love, a tale every bit as atmospheric but way funnier than the runaway best-seller. This is what life in Italy really looks like when you're a 30-something woman running from grief and trying to find her way back to love. Elizabeth Geoghegan writes in English, dreams in Italian, and wishes she could remember how to speak French. She earned an MFA in fiction writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in creative writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is currently completing a story collection, The Book of Boys, and at work on a novel called The Year of the Cock, a black comedy set in Southeast Asia. She lives in Rome, Italy, on a dead-end street between a convent and a jail. This is a short e-book published by Shebooks--high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women. For more information, visit http://shebooks.net.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShebooks
    Release dateJan 21, 2014
    ISBN9781940838113
    The Marco Chronicles: To Rome, without love
    Author

    Elizabeth Geoghegan

    Elizabeth Geoghegan is the author of Natural Disasters: Stories and The Marco Chronicles: To Rome Without Love, a Kindlebestseller, winner of the Travelers' Tales Solas Gold Prize for Memoir, and selected for The Best Travel Writing, Volume 10. Most recently, her essay about her friend and mentor, "Smoking with Lucia Berlin," was among The Paris Review's "Best of 2015." Geoghegan earned her MFA in Fiction from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and her MA in Creative Writing from The University of Colorado at Boulder. She lives in Rome.

    Read more from Elizabeth Geoghegan

    Related to The Marco Chronicles

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Art Of​ Romance

      Jun 25, 2023

      The Art Of​ Romance
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Roman Gal

      Jan 4, 2024

      I’m Elisa Colarossi, a travel wr iter and illustrator, born and raised in Rome. I write about the unusual aspects of my city, such as local culture and traditions, with a focus on the Roman outskir ts and Lazio’s hidden spots. In 2021 I had the honor

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Madness of Venice

      Apr 2, 2018

      1. I lived in Venice for two years, and I hated it. In conversations I used euphemisms and turns of phrase (among my favorite either you love it or hate it! and it’s a… difficult city), but I was lying through my teeth. I fucking hated it

      10 min read

    • Article

      Storytelling Should Never Be Confused with Sociology: The Millions Interviews John Domini

      Oct 3, 2019

      John Domini’s new novel concludes his trilogy set in Naples after a fictional earthquake, engrossing readers in a gripping mystery. The post Storytelling Should Never Be Confused with Sociology: The Millions Interviews John Domini appeared first on T

      7 min read

    • Article

      Heartbreaks & misadventures

      Aug 21, 2020

      Among other things, your book is a culinary adventure. Why is food such a central theme? You can’t write a book about Italians without food playing a major role. It is such a fundamental part of the Italian culture. Italians bond over eating – it’s

      4 min read

    • Article

      From Italy WITH LOVE

      Nov 20, 2020

      Born in Sicily, Carmelo Blandino has always had an artist’s eye and an adventurer’s soul. He moved from Italy to Canada to earn his degree in illustration and design from Dawson College in Montreal. In 2005, at the urging of a Floridian friend, he pa

      2 min read

    • Article

      FLORENCE, Singular

      Jun 25, 2023

      FLORENCE, Singular
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dreaming in Italian

      Sep 2, 2021

      Dreaming in Italian
      6 min read

    • Article

      Luxe, Calme Et Volupté

      Oct 12, 2018

      Luxe, Calme Et Volupté
      7 min read

    • Article

      Paris Was Yesterday

      Mar 10, 2021

      THE lane between the farm and the village was still half underwater, so my husband, jabbed weeks ago, insisted on driving me to the village hall in his pickup truck. We loaded up like an old couple going on a day trip to the seaside, me with a Thermo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Have Pen, WILL TRAVEL

      Jun 15, 2020

      Have Pen, WILL TRAVEL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Bead, Bed, and Alley

      May 30, 2019

      Bead, Bed, and Alley
      12 min read

    • Article

      Objects of Curiosity

      Sep 2, 2020

      Objects of Curiosity
      5 min read

    • Article

      Glad You’re Not Here

      May 16, 2023

      Glad You’re Not Here
      8 min read

    • Article

      Document

      Mar 23, 2023

      n"This book encapsulates everything I loved about Soho. It's about what was an underbelly of London, where everything came together - underground drinking places, an eccentric literary scene, sex, everything Soho represented at that time. I started w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Alberto Arbasino Neverending Stories Angkor Vat, YMCA Dormitories Swallowing Proust

      Apr 21, 2020

      Alberto Arbasino was not friendly. We would cross paths at Dino Franzin’s house in Corso Matteotti in Milan, a meeting place for the cultural elite as every slow set was (and should be). He had a sharp face, even as it got heavier with age, with narr

      4 min read

    • Article

      Who Was That Girl?

      Apr 21, 2021

      Who Was That Girl?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Italian For Beginners

      Jan 15, 2023

      Italian For Beginners
      7 min read

    • Article

      It’s Amore

      Jun 15, 2023

      It’s Amore
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Marco Chronicles

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Marco Chronicles - Elizabeth Geoghegan

      Chris

      The Marco Chronicles

      To Rome, without love

      If Rome were a woman, she’d be a whore. The kind of whore who looks good from a distance or in just the right light. And while you are busy ogling her cupolas, she will deftly slip the wallet from your back pocket. She will deceive you and she will seduce you and she will be so intoxicating you will have a hard time letting her go.

      * * *

      My anti-relationship with the Eternal City began by accident. I never burned for Italy the way so many others do. I never imagined idyllic afternoons, lolling supine beneath a vine-strung pergola, chatting in a foreign tongue to new friends. And I never bought into all those stories about the irresistible charm and sexual dynamism of that mythical creature, the Italian male.

      Instead, more than 20 years ago, a friend invited me on what was her dream holiday, not mine. She planned every detail, researched every facet. I never so much as glanced at a guidebook. But we both knew I needed that trip even more than she did. Staggered by the recent death of my brother, I landed in Italy and proceeded to ignore the place along with everything I was feeling. Then, one afternoon, alone in a café near the San Lorenzo market in Florence, I met a beautiful—and, it must be mentioned—non-Italian man who invited me to a dinner party in Fiesole, a village along a winding road, high above the city, the house just a stone’s throw from the birthplace of Galileo.

      That gathering became the eventual memory upon which I would later impulsively quit my job, sell my possessions, and pack my bags to construct a life abroad. It wasn’t the bougainvillea dangling above the doorframe that did it. Or the homemade fettuccine, fresh fennel, raisins, and cream. Nor was it the view of Florence glittering below, those overly romanticized Tuscan hills unfurling in the distance. It wasn’t even the glorious golden light that gave way to the rising mist as evening suddenly surrounded us. It was the half Puerto Rican, half Trinidadian graffiti artist from the South Bronx.

      It was the guy. Not Italy.

      And it was the two of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1