Women in Sunlight

This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof

Copyright © 2018 Frances Mayes

BY CHANCE, I WITNESSED THE arrival of the three American women. I'd been reading in my garden for a couple of hours, taking a few notes and making black dots in the margins, a way to locate interesting sentences later without defacing the book. Around four thirty on these early darkening days, some impulse toward dinner quickens, and I began to consider the veal chops in the fridge and to think of cutting a bunch of the chard still rampaging through the orto. Chard with raisins, garlic, and orange peel. Thyme and parsley for the tiny potatoes Colin dug at the end of summer. Since the nights were turning chilly, I put down my book, grabbed the wood-carrier from the house, and walked out to the shed to fetch olive tree prunings for the fireplace grill.

Yet another escape. I am putting off writing about Margaret, my difficult and rigorous friend, whose writing I admired. Oh, still admire, but this project feels more like trying to strike mildewed matches-I keep rereading instead of writing. I've read her Stairs to Palazzo del Drago a dozen times.

A book can be a portal. Each one I've written firmly sealed off one nautiline chamber (Is nautiline a word? Meaning pertaining to a nautilus?), and then opened into the next habitable space. Always before, my subjects chose me. I'm the happy follower of fleeting images that race ahead, sometimes just out of sight, of lines that U-turn and break like the downside of heartbeats. Isn't boustrophedon the ongoing form of writing that mimics the turns an ox makes when plowing a field?

At times, writing conflagrates, a vacant-lot fire started by bad boys. That's when I'm elated. But this time, I chose my friend as the subject. I feel as I did in college, slugging out a research paper on "The Concept of Time in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets." I enjoyed the work but immediately felt humiliated by my limits.

I'm easily distractible.

FRANCES MAYES is the author of seven books about Tuscany, including the now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun--which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane. It was followed by Bella Tuscany and two illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home. She is also the author of the novel Swan, six books of poetry, and The Discovery of Poetry. Her books have been translated into fifty-four languages.

"Mayes once again paints a vivid portrait of her beloved Tuscany. I defy you to read her descriptions of blackberry crostata, rotisserie chicken or semolina gnocchi without wondering what's on your own dinner menu tonight." -- Washington Post

"Frances Mayes is back under the Tuscan sun, and the forecast for readers is bright. . . Italy isn't the only place where the sun shines, but here it illuminates what's truly important for these appealing characters, as they 'va & torna,' go and return." -- USA Today

"Mayes's writing about Italy is the next best thing to a plane ticket." -- People Magazine

"The pleasurable descriptions of colors and tastes and various Italian tourist destinations, plus the poetry written by the writer character, the gardens planted by the gardening character, and the handmade paper made by the paper-making character, etc., are enough to keep this party going all year long." -- Kirkus

"Whether in the South or in Italy, Frances Mayes takes us home to a lush, vivid landscape where all senses are engaged. Women in Sunlight, her compelling new novel, transports us emotionally as well, as we watch a cast of memorable women maneuver their lives through many transitions. This novel is a great exploration of process: of writing, of cooking, and most importantly, of living." -- Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life

"Frances Mayes's novel about the feasts and friendships of four American women in the Tuscan countryside is a joy for the senses and an awakening for us all to the possibilities in our lives. Women in Sunlight is one of those novels you'll want to linger in, to leave open on your bedside table, to read each page again and again." -- Nancy Thayer, author of A Nantucket Wedding

"Frances Mayes has outdone herself. The writing is gorgeous, the structure grand and formidable, just like the architecture she writes about so well. I feel like I have lived in Italy. But most of all, I feel like these women-and their men, and