The Measure of Life
by Judith Works
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GENRE: Women's Fiction
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BOOK BLURB:
A story of love and loss, lies and truth, begins in Rome when Nicole shares a cappuccino and cornetto with her Italian tutor. The meeting sets off a chain of events that upends the course of her life. While Rome also brings deep friendships and immersion into a sumptuous food scene there is no escape from acknowledging the consequences of her actions. In search of forgiveness and healing, she moves to an island near her childhood home in Seattle only to find the way to reunite the remnants of her family and discover her true path is to return to Rome and face the past.
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EXCERPT ONE:
I read about a new concept called blogging. Intrigued, I studied the process to launch my own blog. After a lot of false starts, I managed to post about the day I bought bread in the bakery Maggie recommended and ended up meeting the old man. I titled it FIAT PANIS (Let There be Bread):
Once upon a time I met an old man out of a fairy tale. He was tiny and perched in a gigantic carved chair where he presided over a treasure trove of books and antiques. And it was the same day I first savored the goodness of real Roman bread. The kind of bread that’s crispy brown on the outside and chewy inside. The kind baked in a wood-fired oven wafting a mouth-watering aroma out the door to compel you to follow the scent back to the bakery where fresh loaves await. I squeezed through the crowd toward the clerk to make my selection while imagining ancient Romans clustered at the baker’s stall—the baker pulling the rounds of whole wheat spiced with poppy and fennel seeds from the hot oven while his wife handed them to house slaves who gossiped about their owners, and matrons who gossiped about the neighbors as they handed over a few coins.
I included colorful photos of the bakery and a loaf of fresh bread on my kitchen table along with frescoes of loaves from the ruins of Pompeii.
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GUEST POST:
My Office
Because I’m a life-long traveler my office is filled with travel memories that inspire my writing. My first book, a memoir titled Coins in the Fountain, is set in Rome where I lived for ten years. Many of the odds and ends from that time grace the walls and shelves. My new novel, The Measure of Life, is set in Rome and on an island near Seattle. Again, I looked toward my treasures for inspiration on the Roman setting.
I have a large map of Rome in the 17th Century over my desk which holds my PC and dictionaries, The Chicago Manual of Style, and my thesarus. Surrounding the desk on one side is a watercolor of Assisi, an etching of a building near San Gimignano with the towers in the background, a painting from Sicily. On the other side I’ve hung three paintings of Umbria.
There’s also a recent addition of a small piece of a 14th Century Italian Book of Hours. I placed a bronze head from an old piece of furniture above it. I bought it at the famous (and infamous) Roman flea market called Porta Portese.
But the other walls hold other treasures – I puppet from Sri Lanka, a flute from New Guinea, along with an icon and painting from Ethiopia, a Japanese woodcut, a magical realist painting from Haiti, and a print of tribal symbols from Ghana.
Another wall holds small icons, and my bookcase if stuffed with volumes on Italy and my collection of antique travel books. My favorites are the 1913 Baedeker guide to the Holy Land (complete with sentimental pressed flowers from that time), and the 1904 guide to Central Italy including Rome. It’s full of marvelous information and maps for anyone wanting to set a story during that time.
I love my model boats from The Gambia with the little figures paddling or guarding their merchandise as the slide down the river to market. Another small collection on my shelves is Italian terra cotta heads taken from ancient Roman sculptures. The model of the young man served as inspiration for Alessandro, the love interest, in the Measure of Life, although my character is more handsome.
So, what some would see as clutter, is for me, a partial record of my life.
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AUTHOR BIO:
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After I earned a law degree in midlife, I had the chance to leave the Forest Service in Oregon and run away to the Circus (Maximus). In reality my husband and I moved to Rome where I worked for the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization for four years as a legal advisor to the director of human resources. I could see the Circus that had hosted chariot races during the Roman Empire from my office window.
My husband and I reluctantly returned to the US after four years. But we pined for the land of pasta, vino, art, and sunny piazzas. Then the gods smiled and offered a chance to return to Rome with the UN World Food Program. Six more years or food and frolic in the Eternal City passed much too quickly. The indelible experiences living in Italy and working for the UN were the genesis of my memoir Coins in the Fountain.
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