On a tiny piazza in an obscure Italian hilltop town in 1933, magical things are happening. From the window of his mother's bakery a young boy, Niccolò, sees it all: a pickpocket who purloins human emotions; a beggar who summons the voice of God from the town well; a blind silent-movie accompanist; two young lovers whose passion changes history. Over it all looms the onrushing shadow of fascism and Benito Mussolini. In The Piazza: Stories from Piazza Santa Caterina Piccola, citizens of this unexpected and improbable place find themselves bound together by their hopes, their lies, their humanity and their destiny, unbowed in the face of war and certain catastrophe.

From Emmy, Peabody, and Humanitas Award winner and Executive Producer of The Wonder Years, Bob Brush, each of these twenty-five short stories can be read in less than thirty minutes. Together they present a heartwarming, heartbreaking, always funny, sometimes tragic, fantastical love song to a time and place that no longer exist - if in fact they ever existed at all.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: These stories were thirty years in the making, taken from scenes and characters I encountered on my travels throughout Italy. Read a story at the beach, at bedtime, or on your next vacation. If you enjoy humor, romance, and a taste of the unexpected, I hope The Piazza will enchant you with the unique, eternal, and effervescent magic of Italy.

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"The Piazza is a delight. These tales evoke the magic of Calvino's most beguiling works and the conscience-searing observations of Joyce's Dubliners. There's humor and wisdom in these stories, and beauty too, and - delivered so deftly you don't see it coming - the hard punch of history."

- Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink, winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the John Gardner Fiction Award