'Beatuiful Ruins' by Jess Walter

I'm a sucker for a good love story and this fictional novel by Jess Walter is great. The story of a man named Pasquale starts off in the early sixties Porto Vergogna, Italy at a hotel his father opened. His father passed away and Pasquale is there to pick up the pieces, tend to his ailing mother, and is trying to make his father's life's work into something.

The little island hotel is unexpectedly visited by a beautiful American actress and Pasquale's world is tuned upside down. He falls in love. The story then jumps forward to present day Hollywood. The book follows the story of a young and old Pasquale, an actress, a producer, his assistant, a screenwriter (who just wants to sell his script, but gets suckered into being an interpreter); all of this to the backdrop of Cleopatra.

'Beautiful Ruins' is a story about love and loss, and characters whose lives are directed by their own personal motives. The peripheral characters soon become inspired by the love story that unfolds before their eyes and their direction, as human beings, becomes a little more refined and less about them.

I'm not usually a fan of stories that jump all over the place and simultaneously follow the lives of multiple characters. The format is often not done very well or is so well done that I can't follow it because I'm not smart enough or don't have the retentive skills to follow overly-descriptive stories. 'Beautiful Ruins' is different though. I haven't read Walter's other novels, but he had my poorly developed attention the entire way. If you're a fan of good love stories with humor you'll like this one. I loved it.