People and Places
Time for a read - Verdi's Dream
About the Author
Born and raised in the New York City area, Lisa ​Kramer ​Taruschio claims to have been Italian in a past life after inexplicably falling head over heels in love with Italy and all things Italian in her late teens. Her mother, RIP, always insisted the Italians were the lost tribe. While on her JYA in Florence at the regular University of Florence majoring in American and Italian language and literature, Lisa met an Italian university student; since their marriage and in the many years after the divorce, she continues the proud citizen and resident of both countries.
A professional editor, translator and writer, she is ​the translator of the screenplay of Life is Beautiful for Miramax Books (among other wonderful projects) and has worked in major publishing houses in Milan and New York in addition to working as an advertising copywriter in Manhattan for some years.
​After many years in Manhattan, Lisa moved back to Italy in 1998 and today ​still lives in Macerata, where she teaches at the local university, works on international publishing and translating projects, and writes fiction. Verdi's Dream is her first novel. Best quotes: 'Life is too important to be taken seriously' (Oscar Wilde); and, 'Outside of a dog, books are man's best friend; inside of a dog it's too dark to read' (Groucho). Lisa is on Facebook and is largely inept ​with it. Leave her a message on FB; she will soon reactivate her blog.
Synopsis
Verdi's Dream is an historical novel set in Milan in April, 1945. The Allied invasion of Italy and the bitterly fought campaign against the Nazi army was a battle of epic proportions. This fast paced, well written work tells the true story of the Nazi surrender negotiated by OSS representative Allen Dulles and SS General Karl Wolff, a story worthy of a great spy novel - which this is, a cross-cultural story of love, power, loyalty and betrayal played out as World War II comes to a close.​ [blurb by Ambassador William vanden Heuvel]
Interwoven ​in the true story and chronology of the actual surrrender and the actual players in the secret negotiations (Dulles, Wolff, Himmler, Roosevelt, etc.) is the fictional and passionate love story of Robert Simon, an American OSS agent from Providence, Rhode Island sent to Milan by Dulles to protect and maintain the secrecy of the delicate surrender negotiations, and Sara Levi, an Italian Jewish student who is a member of the partisan group that Simon is working with.
The splendid jacket is by Milton Glaser.
