Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

Join us for a conversation with author Andrew Sean Greer, to celebrate his book, a witty yet insightful meditation on what you give and take and becoming who you've always wanted to be. He will be in conversation with Edoardo Ballerini, will be followed by a signing.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

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Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer (“A great chronicler of our times.” – San Francisco Chronicle) showcases his wit, sophistication and deep knowledge of focaccia in this magical and madcap tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic elderly Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills.
Broke and directionless, our young man (the chosen moniker of Villa Coco’s narrator) takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant (technically, the employment ad asked for “adjutant”) to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco, a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown. Technically, our young man is an archivist, charged with cataloguing Coco’s extensive and eclectic collection of art and artifacts, but what are his actual duties? He is charged with ridding the house of a marten, whatever that is, locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco’s great and final plan — to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late.
Told with the signature wit, insight, and deeply felt humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself — a romp through a youthfully self-constructed emotional obstacle course, a meditation on what we give and take from others, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who you’ve always wanted to be.

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of seven works of fiction, including Pulitzer Prize winner Less and its companion Less Is Lost. He is the recipient of the Northern California Book Award, the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the O. Henry award for short fiction, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. Greer lives in Venice.

In a recent profile, called Edoardo Ballerini “a master in his field… at the forefront of a new kind of celebrity.” said, "As a narrator, Edoardo Ballerini is in a class by himself." Over the past few years Edoardo's work as a narrator has garnered unique media attention, with articles on his work and career appearing in (UK), (US), (Norway), (US), (Italy), (Canada), The Week (US) and The Week (UK), among others. He has also been named to "best of" lists in Elle Magazine, USA Today, Slate, Oprah Daily, Business Insider, Newsday, The A/V Club, and People Magazine, and is widely regarded as one of audiobook's brightest stars.

His list of over 500 audiobook titles includes classics by Dante, T.S. Eliot, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Faulkner, Camus, Fitzgerald, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Kafka, Jack London, Turgenev, Calvino, Oscar Wilde, Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as modern day best-sellers by Cormac McCarthy, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Richard Powers, Joyce Carol Oates, John McPhee, Amor Towles, Jess Walter, Hanya Yanagihara, David Baldacci, Cynthia Ozick, James Patterson, Hernan Diaz, Dean Koontz, and Isabel Allende . He has also recorded several spiritual titles by Thich Nhat Hahn and The Dalai Lama, and an unabridged version of The Hebrew Bible.

In 2021, Edoardo teamed up with Best-Selling author Jess Walter to create the Audible Original , a fictional tale based on Edoardo's own experience as a recent college graduate studying Latin with a Vatican priest. The piece was named one of Audible's "Best of 2021." Also that same year, he was commissioned by the Estate of T.S. Eliot and Faber & Faber to record the Centenary Edition of Eliot's landmark poem, The Waste Land, an honor he counts among his highest achievements.

Edoardo is also a frequent narrator of the best of long form journalism, having voiced countless articles for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Wired and several other publications. He is also the voice of several "Sleep Stories" on the Calm app.

In 2023 he was invited to teach a guest course on the Spoken Word at his alma mater Wesleyan University, and he is a frequent speaker and moderator at Literary Festivals.