An Italian Affair

by Laura Fraser

When Laura Fraser's husband leaves her for his high school sweetheart, she takes off, on impulse, for Italy, hoping to leave some of her sadness behind. There, on the island of Ischia, she meets M., an aesthetics professor from Paris with an oversized love of life. What they both assume will be a casual vacation tryst turns into a passionate, transatlantic love affair, as they rendezvous in London, Marrakech, Milan, the Aeolian Islands, and San Francisco. Each encounter is a delirious immersion into place (sumptuous food and wine, dazzling scenery, lush gardens, and vibrant streetscapes) and into each other. And with each experience, Laura brings home not only a lasting sense of pleasure, but a more fully recovered sense of her emotional and sexual self. Written with an observant eye, an open mind, and a delightful sense of humor, An Italian Affair has the irresistible honesty of a story told from and about the heart.

Genres: Travel, Memoir, Italy, Nonfiction, Romance, Chick Lit, Book Club

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

I am a long-time journalist and San Franciscan who loves travel and books. I'm the author of the NYT-bestselling memoir An Italian Affair, and its sequel, All Over the Map. I also wrote a book about the diet industry, Losing It. I am the co-founder and editorial director of Shebooks.net, which publishes short, top-shelf ebooks by women. My own Shebook, The Risotto Guru, is all about eating in Italy.
I'm passionate about reading, and have kept a list of all the books I've read since I was about ten, which you can find on my website: http://www.laurafraser.com/booklists/. I teach and coach writing, particularly memoir and personal essay.

Reviews

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many potent quotables in this adorable travel memoir. Laura Fraser makes me believe in the infinite possibilities of living la dolce vita with plenty of far niente thrown in. I've said this of her other travel memoir, and I'm saying it again...she makes me feel like I'm not alone in the crippling aftermath of a divorce from someone I should have never married. But I also learned something new here: no matter what transpired or the whys and how's of a failed relationship, its all a part of my story, but just a little part. My story is much longer and intricate and it's so not over. Not by a long shot.

Now, all I need to do is divest myself from a ridiculous mortgage, ludicrous credit card debt, and my "stuff" such that I can just go, on a whim, to the far reaches of the planet, having little love affairs.

Or, I can just go to work on Monday morning. Sigh.

[Mairita (Marii grāmatplaukts) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tādas pilnīgi nejaušas grāmatu izvēles bieži ir hit or miss. Šis bija riktīgs trāpījums. Ļoti izbaudīju, lai gan sākumā nebiju tik pārliecināta, ka otrā persona ir labākais veids kā stāstīt. Lauras ceļš no šķiršanās sāpēm līdz sevis un dzīvesprieka atgūšanai bija patiess un pilnasinīgs. Man prieks, ka viņa satika profesoru un viņi kopā baudīja daudzus skaistus mirkļus, kas arī man ļāva baudīt la bella vita dažādās Itālijas vietās, Sanfrancisko, Marokā un citur.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to change my rating and review because I did end up finishing the book. The travel was so interesting that I would have to say I liked the writing, but the fact that it was completely driven by a sad relationship diminishes my enjoyment of this book. When I first decided to give up, the relationship had become too graphic, but she didn't continue in that vein, so I was spared the details that are all written in 2nd person, giving me the sleazy feeling that I'm participating. I kept turning over the book and looking at the author's lovely picture and thinking, "Why aren't you embarrassed?" Travel - lovely, food - interesting, writing - good, shame - nonexistent.

Initial review: The author's husband leaves her for another woman, so she consoles herself by having an affair with a married man. Charming.
Enjoyed some minor countryside and food info before I gave up, but the entire book is written in 2nd person, present tense. How annoying! "You notice a man sitting at the bar..." No, I didn't notice him. YOU noticed him. Don't bring me into your sordid day-to-day life.

[Tisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything I love about Italy, traveling, european men, and even California. I immediately felt like I was in each and every location.

This book provides a great mini-vacation from the comfort of your living room.

[Ryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book in 2001 - at the recommendation of my friend Heather. To be honest I wasn't sure it would be something I'd like... and there were facets of the book that totally go against my moral values...however, it was delicious for a variety of reasons.

This book is written in 'second person' and therefore from a writing point of view - I was captivated by the unique form of narrating the story.

The story is true - based on the author's experience. I liked how she overcame a troubled divorce and moved on to become a confident woman - who revels in a new found self esteem. This book won't be for everyone - but it scores as one of my favorites because of the descriptive word pictures she uses to describe her trips to Italy, and again because of the style in which Laura writes.

I'm not into 'sleeping around' with a married man in an open marriage... as she does in the book - but I did find other things in the book that made it worth a read, a re-read, a re-read, and another re-read! No doubt I'll pick it up again and again and again....

[Kathy Marler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in a home where Kurt and I stayed in Hawaii. The author, Laura Fraser is a travel writer, and I believe this was her first book. It is actually an auto-biography, written like a novel. Laura Fraser is a great author, and I wish there was another book to read.

Ms. Fraser made Italy come alive. The sights, the sounds, the aromas and tastes were described in such a way that I felt I was in Italy, enjoying once again, a vacation I had years ago. I now have a great desire to return and enjoy each savory sensation once again. It was the next best thing to being in Italy and eating a gelato on a sunny day on the Ponte Vichio!!

[Kristal · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I don't hand out 5 stars too often, neither do I give too many books a single star, but this was all I could offer. And I had such high hopes for this book since my dream is to visit Italy. The traveling part of the story was okay, the 2nd person narrative drove me insane!! And then the author's behavior was so pettish and clingy. I felt that she needed a man to validate herself. While I am not a expressing feminism here, only the fact that as humans, we do not need another person to make us happy or make us feel more of who we are. We should find that within ourselves, whether or not you are a female or a male. Happiness comes from within, not having a fling with a married man.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me think that American men have a lot to learn about how to treat women! Fun read for sure.

[Sienna18 · Rating 1 out of 5]

P-YOU...this book stinks!
(A book written in 2nd person, repetitive use of YOU)

YOU realize you hate the way this book is written. YOU get more pleasure out of reading the bad reviews on this book than actually reading it. YOU get to page 21 and YOU donate it to goodwill. YOU kiss your $12 goodbye. YOU wish you had spent your money on a good sandwich and an Italian soda instead.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book on my TBR since publication date of 2001. I always feel like I accomplished something when I read a book that has been sitting on my shelf for forever! I love anything Italian and was longing to be back in Italy so I grabbed it off my shelf. This book is part travelogue and part memoir. I was most interested in the places she traveled to and the food! I especially enjoyed her descriptions of Ischia and the Aeolian Islands located off the coast of Italy. The memoir part was okay, 30+ woman dealing with divorce trying to start a new life. If you enjoy traveling I recommend this book.

[Sadie Watson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title says it all, no need to read it, wanted very much to like this book but it was uneventful and borish

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good little read and a nice storyline. It felt a little too much like a travel book for me that is the reason I have given 3 stars. I would still recommend reading.

[BJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

"An Italian Affair" is the first in a 2-book memoir by Laura Fraser. This was a re-read because it had been several years since I read it the first time and I recently found the second book. It is the story of a 30-ish writer (generally she writes travel pieces for various magazines)who lives in San Francisco who has a great affection for all things Italian. After her husband leaves her for an old high-school flame, she takes off for Italy to "recover." While there on vacation, she meets a married French art professor and embarks on what she thinks is a vacation fling but turns into a several year, once or twice a year, affair. During this time they meet all over the world for "vacations." He comes to San Francisco and she takes him all over California, they meet in Morroco and London and back in Italy several times. She describes in great detail the foods they eat and the places they go. I liked the book better the first time I read it. Basically, I have 2 problems with her story. The first is that she uses "you" instead of "I" throughout the book when talking about herself and I found this very annoying. The second is just due to my own moral code, I had a problem with the fact that Professor M as she calls him, was married. I thought the fact that her husband had an affair while they were married would have made her less willing to do this to another woman. Just my personal feeling. Otherwise, I enjoyed the travelogue and culinary parts of the book.

[Jaclyn Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you heal yourself after losing love? In the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, Fraser tells how she put a heart-breaking divorce behind her after a chance meeting with a Parisian professor in Italy who helped restore her self-confidence and her lust for life (and other things).

What really struck me about this book was the travelog feel throughout. Fraser is a skilled travel writer, and those skills are put to good use here as she offers a real taste of each location she visits to the reader. As she and “M” (the professor) part ways, then meet later in a different location, she aptly describes both the scenery and the way their relationship changes (or the way it just changes her).

It’s such a short, quick read. I curled up on the couch with a cup of decaf coffee and a few cookies and had it done in two hours or so. It transported me in a really exciting way, but I appreciated most of all Fraser’s honesty about her vulnerabilities. It doesn’t have what you might think of as a traditional storybook ending, but it does end on what I felt was a satisfying note—made all the more so by the knowledge that the book is a memoir and not fiction.

It was a perfect end of summer book for me and enticed me to perhaps drag out some pasta recipes again (I’ve had a pasta aversion for a little while here due to weird pregnancy food things going on). I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!

[Micaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm obsessed with all things Italian. I always said I left my heart there after my summer in Italia. My Dolce Vita. This book is great! What I learned from this book is you can have a great escape after a great loss in your life... that you can find love again in the impossible. She is just so cute and reading her words about her life, you just feel like you've met her. Like she could be one of your girlfriends. ABSOLUTELY loved it. Like your favorite movie, I could re-read this one over and over. I let all my girlfriends borrow it after I got done reading it and my copy is still with a gf. Need to get it back... it's been awhile since I've read it and it might do me good now. She's a freelance journalist-- of which I wish I could be, so you know she is well-written.

"Your brain parts company with your mouth for a moment and you tell him he has a face like Bob Dylan. He seems surprised at what a direct and personal thing that is to say, you American you, and you quickly add "ten years ago," though it's probably closer to five, and he doesn't really look displeased. Amused."

[Aleta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this book and enjoyed it. L. Fraser did a great job telling a love affair story and keeping it tasteful, not loosing the story to the love affair alone. The story is told through the eyes of the female character and it is about the emotional healing and the blossoming of two human beings in their middle ages. One thing I really like about the book as that although the two are very passionate about one another they continue to lead their own lives and honoring their own separate life paths which happen to be on different continents. They are able to evolve, love and give to each other with out completely depending on each other for anything but the present moment they share together. Especially the female character who goes through the largest leaps of growth and healing. Also, this apparently is a bit of a memoir of the authors real-life experience. One thing that I couldn't let go of is that the female character was having a love affair with a married man. Even though it's explained why this was acceptable to the both of them.

[Angela N · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't too impressed with this book. I didn't enjoy the second person writing style, I didn't feel like the story had a great point, and I didn't agree with the author's behavior/philosophy. It seemed like the whole book was about a crushed/divorced woman who meets up with a guy every 6 months or so and has lots of sex. I didn't really feel like her story took her on a great journey of healing or enlightenment, she just kind of got over her divorce and described her sexual exploits. It wasn't a graphic description of sexual encounters, but it was more detail than I cared about.

One review I read said this book was way better than Eat, Pray, Love by Gilbert, but honestly there is no comparison. They are books with a similar prologue, but a very different method of handling it. Eat, Pray, Love I gave 5 stars, this, as you can see, was only given 2.

I just have to sum up by saying I almost quit reading it after the first 2 chapters and I wouldn't have missed out on anything if I had.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, my heart sank. Written in second person, present tense? I can handle that voice for a short piece--but for a whole a book? I thought I wouldn't be able to lose myself in the story because I'd be too overly aware of the style. I had just read Fraser's other book, ALL OVER THE MAP, and had loved it. I was hoping for more of the same.

But I needn't have rushed to judgment. Soon, I was swimming in the story and enjoying her insights into travel, love, heartbreak and human connection. In fact, eventually I found I liked the second person. It created a dreamy ambiance.

Ultimately, this book is about discovering how to love without clinging, or without subverting your true self. The end has a beautiful pay-off. I love the poignancy the develops in her relationship to the man with whom she's having a love affair. And I was especially moved by her blossoming understanding of why her marriage hadn't worked.

In both her books, I'm was inspired by her "la bella vita" approach to life.

[Roxenne Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to have given this a rating of 3.5 for Fraser's wonderful descriptions of the exotic places she rendezvoused with her lover. Her story is sweet and satisfying on many levels, but I do hope that by now she has moved on from her love affair with a married man and has found the love of her life.

Fraser's honest accounting of her relationship with an older married man made me more accepting of "forbidden" loves. M. came into her life at a time when she had deep emotional wounds and he helped her to heal. From the beginning it was clear that this relationship was not one that would end in marriage, so every interaction was about moving her closer to self discovery.

Since this was a memoir, I wish she had spoke from the first person perspective. I found her use of the second person sometimes jarring and often confusing and I see that other reviewers on Goodreads have said the same thing.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 1 out of 5]

1607230 I had to drag myself through most of this book - the main reason was the endless You's. I found it incredibly irritating to have You in almost every sentence.
I also failed to find much interest in the affairs of a woman who knowingly - especially after being cheated on - chose to have an affair with a married man regardless of what he says the circumstances of his marriage are. I can see the romance in a sweeping translantic kind of way but I really dislike infidelity as a lifestyle choice so couldn't involve myself in the story (particularly with the repetitive YOU)
I'd give it 1 and a half stars

[Moe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs and biographies are my favorites and this travelogue by Ms. Fraser is a light easy read that is funny, honest and at the same thought-provoking about the reality of unfaithfulness everyday and everytime. I love anything and everything that is Italian and I've picked up some nice notes from this book that'll prolly be of use when the time comes that I could finally step into the grounds of my soul's home country: Italy. :) Her story is one full of adventures, love and courage. The courage to let go of things or of people is a rare thing...not everyone can toughen up to the pain it entails.

[Billie Criswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was immediately sucked into this book--start to finish. I read it in one luscious day and it completely consumed me. The style in which she writes is so vivid, so alluring, that you are taken into her world. I loved her language, and I loved that she melded her travel with her affair. In a world where we are all looking for love, she reveals so much about herself and her search for love that it makes us all wish we could exist with such honesty.

I don't know what I enjoyed more, her affair or her travel. All I can say is that I loved her writing, top to bottom, and it made me hungry for sex, food, and good wine.

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved this book! Quite a page turner, which I could not put down. It is light, but well written, with lovely descriptions of off the beaten path locations throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa. It is actually really wonderful travel writing. A memoir about a recent divorcee and the affair she has with a married professor, over several rendevous in different cities. It was a great escapist read for a weekend. Author also shared interesting insights into pleasure, living, and joie de vivre.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disappointed by the ending. I guess I like happy endings for romance novels and this kind of just ends with no clear way of how there romance will be or if it will continue etc. The romance aspect is nice and it’s awesome that she finds someone she can connect with as a vacation partner and escape to but I really hate the way the story is told where it’s like “you go to a restaurant” as if you are her. Not a fan of that point of view.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting reading about the locations she met her married lover but I found it somewhat depressing and sleazy. She tries to say she has a full life but to me it's empty--meeting a married man a few times a year and that's enough for a young woman? And if she isn't somewhat ashamed of this lifestyle, why not name the man instead of calling him "M"?

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an amazing read. Truly inspiring the mind and heart to keep searching even when you feel you have hit rock bottom. And what a great read about Italy and Italian men. Great book to get lost in for a weekend...

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best travel writing/ memoir I've read. It is a vacation for the reader. The romance is fun-especially against the backdrop of some exciting destinations. I read it in 2 days and was sad when it was over.

[Marian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waaaaay better than Eat Pray Love!!

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites.

[cmac · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks Jonelle