The Italian Lover

Margot Harrington’s memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica – and the misguided love aff air it inspired – is now, 25 years later, being made into a film. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life.

Of course, their script is not used, but never mind – happy endings are the best endings for films, as Margot eventually comes to see. At the former convent in Florence where The Sixteen Pleasures – now called The Italian Lover – is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.