The Piazza

On a tiny piazza in an obscure Italian hilltop town, circa 1933, remarkable things are happening. From the window of his mother's bakery a young boy, Niccol, sees it all: a pickpocket who purloins human emotions; a beggar who summons the voice of God from the town well; two young lovers whose passion changes history; a blind silent-movie accompanist. An exotic princess held captive in the local nunnery, a blackshirt bent on revenge and, hovering over all, the looming shadow of fascism and Benito Mussolini. In The Piazza: Stories from Piazza Santa Caterina Piccola citizens of this unexpected and improbable place find themselves bound together by their hopes, their lies, their humanity and their destiny, unbowed in the face of onrushing war and certain catastrophe. It's a heartwarming, heartbreaking, always funny, sometimes tragic, fantastical love song to a time and place that no longer exist - if in fact they ever existed at all.