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.
I'm a longtime freelance writer, San Franciscan, and literature junkie. I'm excited about my new book, All Over the Map, which is a memoir about what happens in midlife when things don't exactly go as planned--and you take a few plane trips to figure out how to come to terms with that, learning a lot of other life lessons along the way. The book is, in some ways, a sequel to my bestselling memoir, An Italian Affair. People who loved that book (thank you for so many of your kind letters!) will see what happens next in All Over the Map. Unlike An Italian Affair, this book isn't written in the second person ("you") but the first person ("I"), so I won't have to answer quite so many questions about why I wrote it that way.
I make my living as a writer, mostly doing personal essays, travel, and food articles for magazines, along with the occasional piece of more serious journalism. I have a passion for good writing, and appreciate writers who are simple, clear, and funny. My model and mentor as a writer is William Zinsser, who wrote On Writing Well, along with a lot of other great books about writing. I recommend that if you are interested in writing you read his books.
I have a website (laurafraser.com) and a blog (laurafraser.com/notes), as well as a list of all the books I've read since I was 13 years old (laurafraser.com/list.html). I love having this list and suggest that if you're a reader, you create, one, too. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. It's never too late.
I divide my time between San Francisco and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (both 415 area codes, weirdly). I feel blessed to be able to read and travel and write and have so many wonderful friends around the world.
