I’ve not admitted this to anyone, even my wife or agent, but writing The English Bookstore in Bologna was a direct result of the profound joy I had in reading Gabrielle Zevin’s glorious novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.
I remember the moment precisely. My family and I were living in Valencia, Spain, and I’d been toying with writing a tale about misfit expats—something akin to my Red Mountain series—but I hadn’t quite found the essence yet. Seemingly unrelated, I’d also been struggling to find print copies of English books and had been wishing there was a lovely English-language bookstore like Paris’s Shakespeare and Company.
Along came A.J. Fikry…
It’s an incredibly compelling story about a grumpy bookstore owner who falls in love with a wonderfully complicated woman. Gabrielle’s writing is exceptional, as always. On that note, her latest, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, is also dazzling.
Though their genres are totally different, I see strong prose ties between V.E. Schwab and her. They both have an extraordinary ability to drop nuclear-bomb phrasing while still allowing a captivating story to lead the way.
I wished I’d loved the Fikry movie more, but that’s fine. We have the book. If you haven’t read it, you’re in for a treat. It captures so much of why we love books and bookstores, and it’ll restore your passion for reading if you’ve been in a slump.
My first thought, as I set the finished book down, was: Hey, not fair, I want to write a novel set in a bookstore!
So began a wonderful journey as I brought my own bookstore curmudgeon to life.
While living in Spain, I was in a really good place creatively. I’d start my days with an hour or two walk through the Turia Garden, then write for a few hours, then join my wife and friends for an always delightful long, long lunch before a siesta. I don’t know that I’d ever felt so rich emotionally, so spiritually grounded, so utterly rooted in the present.
Words flew from my fingers. My protagonist’s name was Sandy, and I fell into the rhythm of her prickly voice with such ease that there were times that I totally left my own skin. I’d dream from her point of view.
But as I reached one-hundred pages, I hit a huge snag.
I’d presented three story ideas to my publisher, Lake Union, pushing for a two-book deal. Sandy and her community of bookstore misfits didn’t make the cut. I was devastated but had no choice but to shelf the story for another time. That was back in 2021.
Fast-forward to two years ago. Sandy was haunting my dreams, demanding I tell her story. And yet, I’d written A Spanish Sunrise in the meantime and had already captured so much of what I love about Spain. Worried that she might slap me, I asked Sandy if she’d mind if I set her bookstore in Italy.
She smirked at the idea, which was a huge sign, because Sandy rarely smirks. This time, my publisher was all about the idea, and the story began to lock into place, especially since my wife is Italian and close to nabbing her citizenship. Though it was her grandparents who were born in Italy, I’m not sure anyone is more Italian than my wife, so I know the culture; we visit often.
After a lot of research, we (my wife, Sandy, and I) decided that the ancient city of Bologna would be the perfect setting, so I booked a trip and immersed myself in what became one of my favorite spots in Europe. On one of my long walks, as I scribbled madly in a notepad, I came across a charming street that took my breath away, and in my mind’s eye, Sandy’s bookstore came to life.
In the novel, I made up the street name, but I can still see so clearly the cobblestone street, the terracotta, the frescoes, the flower boxes bursting with begonias, surfinas, and geraniums. I can smell the yeasty goodness of the nearby panificio; I can hear the chirp of the swifts and doves as they danced between the columns of the elaborate porticoes.
I spent the rest of the trip letting Bologna seep into me, and I made room in my head for the rest of the cast of expats. A mousey British woman with a tremendous secret; a recently retired man who fears he has nothing left to offer; his daughter, a psychotherapist who is having the most epic of midlife crises; and a young nerd from Colorado who has finally found someone who loves him. Let’s just say they’re all going about their lives in the wrong way, and it might take a bookstore and its curmudgeonly porcupine owner to save them.
(Oh, and there’s a love interest chef who is trying to get a Michelin star. I’ll save the silly tale of my undercover visit to a Michelin-starred restaurant for a later missive, but know that there’s delicious food all over this book.)
I’ll leave you with one last ingredient that made this book special.
If you’ve followed me long enough, you know the obstacles I’ve faced as a creative, the warring with imposter syndrome, the tight deadlines, the figuring out how to do this thing for a living, especially after having lost my first career due to a hand issue.
More and more, especially so with this book, I’m not writing to impress anyone, to hit the bestseller list, to make money, to satisfy reviewers. I’m simply committed to falling into flow as often as possible and breaking bread with the magic that’s all around us—whatever you’d like to call it. I’m writing what I want to read and what delivers me joy to write, and the hell with what anyone thinks about the finished product. What’s funny is I think that mindset actually creates a better book! You’ll have to be the judge.
After all these years, I’ve come to peace with the fact that I’m not in a competition with other authors or artists. I just want to be better than I was yesterday, and I want to release onto the page totally unfiltered and authentic Boo Walker, while at the same time, acting merely as a vessel, so that the stories and characters already out there in the ether might land onto my blank pages without me marring them with my ego.
Perhaps that makes some sort of sense. It sure does to me.
That’s the place from which I wrote this book, and it’s a tremendous honor to soon slip it into your hands. You can buy it here!