The Almost Corner

There's a lively buzz at The Almost Corner Bookshop, a magical place with a magical name on Via del Moro, 45, 00153 Roma, Italy. Run by Irish ex-pat Dermot O'Connell and his manager and events coordinator Anita Ross, from Scotland, this destination is a legendary stop for readers and writers. The collection is exciting and daring, the clientele witty and charming (including an opera expert; a chef who cooks for a billionaire with homes in Rome and Newport, Rhode Island; a couple who'd just sold everything and dared to start a new life in Rome; bookstore habitués; and a surprise visit from two vagabonds from Chicago, my son and daughter in law). I"ll never forget this reading.

That night, we dine at the Royal Art Cafe, No. 1 Piazza del Colosseo, with views of the Colosseum. A swank tourist trap, it's open till 2 a.m.. At least twenty metropolitan swells (both women and men) in their early twenties–dressed as if they're escorts in an Italian version of Breakfast at Tiffany's–wait on the sidewalk. Will a UFO slide in and pick them up? They seem barely interested in each other. The Lonely Crowd.





Next, we drive (watch out, Italy) south along the coast to Naples, where we stay at Hotel Grand Parkers, with its sweeping city views of the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius, Sorrento, and Capri, which looks like the head of a crocodile on the horizon. One of the first things we do is give a copy of the novel to the concierge, Marco, who has skills rivaling Raffi's. We'd met him in April while I was researching and writing the story.

The following day, we head to the U.S. Navy Base in Naples for a reading at the striking modern library and an interview on Armed Forces Radio Network. When I answer questions about the novel into the microphone, I feel my father listening from decades away. As a B-17 pilot, he flew 35 missions over Germany and Occupied France during World War II. Armed Forces Radio Network had just hit the airwaves in 1943. The Allied network faced stiff competition: Lord Haw-Haw and Axis Sally.

The Naples Navy library is run by Ciro Giordano, who also set up the radio interview. I mention to him that when I spoke with Dr. Helen Hills in York, England, she told me she used to tune in AFN during her visits to Naples when she craved hearing English. It's a big signal, and a lot of people have been swept up in it.



I listened to it when I was a Naval Officer, detached in Naples in the early 1980s. My wife Nancy, a future Navy dentist, and her family heard it, too, when she was growing up here. At separate times but in separate decades, both she and I were billeted at the same two places, Hotel Forum in Rome and Grand Hotel Parkers in Naples.