ENRICO: Until we moved to Venice, our life was split between San Francisco and Milan, a city that gave me a lot, where I started publishing my writing and where I have many friends, but a city I never really loved. In order to decide where to make a new home in Italy, we considered Palermo, then Cilento, Rome, Umbria, and here we are in Venice, one hour away from Schio, where I was born. My hometown, in the Veneto region, is a place where everybody knows everything about everybody, a place from which I ran away the first moment I had a chance. It’s near the Alps, made of Catholic churches, dive bars, and forests.
ANDREW: I like your hometown! As you say, you grew up next to a forest. Though I don’t miss Milan, I miss the trees of San Francisco. We moved to Venice from Milan over a year ago, and of course the thrill of our furniture arriving by boat, attaching bookcases to ancient wonky walls, the smell of the tide, and the attacks of seagulls was enough. Certainly enough for the senses, enough to work on a book. Venice is a city of nature in the sense that water is, of course, all around; I often say that it is more like a sleepy harbor town than a bustling city. Foghorns, seagulls, splashing waves. But you could go for days without seeing a tree. I also miss my daily swim in the San Francisco Bay at the Dolphin Club.
ENRICO: You should go to Lido and swim in front of the Grand Hôtel des Bains. I know that the water in this part of the Adriatic is so shallow, and it would be hard to feel like a grown-up version of Tadzio, from Death in Venice; nothing can beat a swim while looking at the Ghirardelli sign on one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other, except maybe warmer water and a total absence of sharks and sea lions? In Venice, there’s even a dolphin coming by these days. Not a Dolphin club, a real dolphin in flesh and bones.
This letter appears in Issue 35 of Alta Journal.
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ANDREW: There aren’t sharks! But I don’t miss the sea lions, it’s true. I’ve been searching for a new activity. Imagine my delight when our publisher friend rented out an old bocce club for a Christmas party celebrating his publishing house and we went inside and found: trees! One of the club members taught me bocce (different rules for an indoor court), and there was a bar that sold white wine with an ice cube and a lemon for a euro. Best of all: an enormous garden that, for this occasion, was filled with a live band all in Santa costumes. They brought their own taped sound of applause. I was enthralled.
ENRICO: Enthralled! You were enthralled by that place? It’s nice, but bars like that remind me exactly of the ones in my hometown. Maybe an equivalent in San Francisco is something like the former Lucky 13?
ANDREW: More like the Bay View Boat Club. I suppose I’m not looking for trees; I’m looking to find my place in the city. Having people who know me, a spot to go every day, a special restaurant or café…or club. That’s really what I’m seeking in this second year. I am told that in every Italian town, there is a “man with the key” who can open the local church and show you its masterpiece. I have high hopes this bocce club is that key.
ENRICO: The first person I heard saying this about Italian towns was you. It’s so funny that you have high hopes, but you might be right! In my experience, the way to enter a new city is exactly through enthrallment and high hopes. In Venice, I am mostly enthralled by the silence, the beauty, and my old fantasies with the staircases that walk you into the green water. I fantasized so much about the magic world they could bring me to when I was a kid. But when I arrived in San Francisco, I was exactly like you, with high hopes. That made me discover a beautiful community of artists and friends, plus the majestic trees we cannot find in Venice—and actually we could not find that many even in Milan. I land at SFO, and the first thing I do is hike to Buena Vista Park and check whether under those Monterey cypresses the fog allows me to see the Golden Gate Bridge. My mind starts wandering in a very similar way to how it does when I’m looking at those Venetian staircases. Nature and art, plus a little bit of magic. I guess that’s what we both keep on looking for, in the cities where we are building our life together.
ANDREW: Oh, thank God. I was afraid you thought I’d lost my senses!
ENRICO: Oh, please. We both lost our senses a long time ago.•
Enrico Rotelli’s articles about U.S. literature received the Premio Amerigo 2020. He translated The Great Gatsby, and his most recent book, Nanda e io, was awarded il Premio Visintin and il Premio Letterario Città di Como.
Andrew Sean Greer is the author of eight novels, including Less, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. His next book, Coco, is forthcoming in June.
