Francesca Giacco, SIX DAYS IN ROME
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[1:30]Jaco is the author of six days in Rome
[1:33]Francesca is a graduate of Barnard College and the MSA program at Columbia University
[1:37]She lives in New York six days in Rome. It's her first novel. Welcome Francesca
[1:41]Thanks so much for coming and months. Don't have time to read books to discuss six days in Rome
[1:48]I'm gonna be here. It's a pleasure
[1:50]We were just chatting about our mutual friend Lee Carpenter
[1:53]So Lee, thank you so much for this wonderful introduction if you're listening
[1:57]Okay, six days in Rome just totally transported me. It was amazing
[2:03]You have a real gift for these really impactful short sentences scattered throughout that like stay with me
[2:10]So I just wanted to read a couple of them and then I want you to like explain to everybody what your book is actually about and all that
[2:16]You said at one point. He did tell me once that the reason we love someone is because we share their adjectives
[2:22]But yeah, I love that. I love that. Thank you. And doing there was one more
[2:27]Rome doesn't know what to do with a woman alone. Also true
[2:32]Okay, what is the book about and then let's talk about let's get deeper in the book on its face
[2:38]Amelia the main character is supposed to go to Rome for six days with her boyfriend
[2:44]She finds out he's married they break up and she decides to go anyway and
[2:50]The resulting trip is really a self-discovery sort of journey. It has to do with
[2:56]grief in many forms heartbreak in many forms art creativity
[3:02]Amelia is an artist. She's the child of artists. Her father is a famous musician. Her mother is a visual artist in her own right
[3:11]Rome is obviously a city that is full of character and art and food and wine and she experiences all of it
[3:19]Sort of at this pivotal moment in her in her own life and along the way
[3:24]She does meet someone. She meets an ex-pat named John who is living in the city who is sort of
[3:31]Run away from his life in a different way and they meet at you know
[3:35]Sort of catalystic if that's a word moments for them both and
[3:40]Figure each other out in a way
[3:43]And this is your first novel. Congratulations. Thank you. Hey, how did this come to be?
[3:49]Oh, well, I've been writing
[3:51]God feels like my whole life and you know
[3:55]I'd gone through many different ideas for novels in the past
[3:59]I spent my 30th birthday part of it alone in Rome and that it's a city that
[4:05]I've had a relationship to I've been there many times throughout my life
[4:09]And I the way I feel about it has always been sort of a mystery to me
[4:13]I've spent more time in other places and I speak French. I don't really speak Italian very well
[4:18]I'm a bit of a fish out of water there
[4:20]But being in Rome has always made me feel really calm really at peace
[4:25]I just when I'm there for some reason. I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be
[4:29]So I think so you tell is your family from Italy. Like are you Italian?
[4:33]Yes, my grandfather was was born there born in Campania
[4:37]Which is even funnier because I have this very Italian name and people expect me to speak Italian
[4:42]So it's more of a question mark when I when I don't I'm trying to get better because I'm actually going to Italy on Thursday
[4:49]So I'm trying to
[4:52]But so that you know setting the novel in Rome
[4:56]I think was in a lot of ways trying to figure out exactly what the city means to me and and why it
[5:01]Has the effect on me that it does
[5:04]and the other
[5:05]Sort of big catalysts
[5:07]For this story in particular was the experience of traveling alone
[5:11]Which is something that I've done a fair amount of in my life. It's a very polarizing topic
[5:16]People feel one way or another about it. People are terrified of doing it or love it
[5:20]It's hard to find someone who feels sort of lukewarm about traveling alone
[5:24]But I think it's such a unique experience and that the tradition of the flutter
[5:28]The wanderer is such an interesting one in literature
[5:31]And I wanted to approach it in my own way
[5:34]Then traveling alone is such an interesting way to experience a place
[5:38]And where you are in your life at that moment and how the two intersect
[5:42]So that was really the impetus behind the narrative
[5:46]I wanted to see if I could take a reader
[5:48]On that journey of you know where you are in the present versus how your past comes into it and get that down on the page
[5:55]So that was the that was the task
[5:57]Wait, so what was your first trip alone? And how did you end up going alone?
[6:02]My first trip alone. I think it was probably to Paris. Yeah, it was to Paris when I was in
[6:09]college
[6:11]Early in college and Paris is a city that I'd always romanticize to so many people too
[6:16]And I've spent a lot of time there in my life, but at this point I didn't know it very well at all
[6:21]And I think the big eye opening thing about that trip was I learned that I could be
[6:27]self-sufficient in a way that I hadn't really been tested before
[6:31]And
[6:33]It was eye opening and part of traveling alone is you know, it's not always pretty
[6:38]It's not cinematic things go wrong. You feel lonely
[6:41]You're sitting at a bar and you have to sort of fend for yourself
[6:44]But to learn that I could do that and it could be rewarding in its own way
[6:50]Was incredibly eye opening and in the book there are a lot of conversations with strangers
[6:54]There are a lot of encounters like that and I think
[6:58]I love that. I mean even living in New York that happens to me pretty frequently
[7:02]You know people just tell you things when you're sitting alone at a bar and vice versa
[7:07]It's a kind of fascinating way to experience a place even if you live there
[7:12]I'm not sure. I've spent much time alone at bars in New York, but I have lived there my life
[7:19]Yeah, I don't know. I think I'd be more likely to you know
[7:22]Be getting lunch somewhere the book or something like that. Exactly. Although. I don't know post COVID
[7:28]I've become almost um, what's the word when you're like afraid to leave your house. I feel like I spent so much time
[7:36]I'll think of it anyway
[7:37]Well, I want to talk about what wait. I had a question in the book and this is such a random point
[7:41]But the Amelia can't sleep on planes and she says that she hallucinates with gummies and sleeping
[7:48]Do you is that is that a you thing or that was just a random detail? Oh, it's definitely a me thing
[7:55]I've made that mistake. It's one of those things where I should have learned it long ago
[7:59]And I'm about to take this trip to Rome on Thursday
[8:02]And I'm all make the same mistake again. I know it. It's just I can't I can't sleep sitting up
[8:08]I'm so jealous of people who can doesn't matter how tired I am and I've I've tried everything nothing really works
[8:15]We'll keep trying
[8:17]You have like sleeping issues on a regular basis. Like can you sleep at home?
[8:21]I can sleep at home. Fine. If I'm horizontal. Great. It's just traveling. I can't figure it out
[8:29]It's really hard
[8:30]It's definitely not the best sleep. Sometimes I wake up though at home and I'm like wow
[8:33]I feel like I slept on an airplane last night
[8:35]I wasn't like woken up so many times and whatever
[8:38]Worst scenario. Yeah, exactly. There's a passage about books that I found really interesting
[8:44]When I'm really talking about reading the rest of the books of
[8:47]Michael right there were Michael's books and then she's going back and reading all the things that he had written
[8:52]And first she says that first book changed who he was to me
[8:55]What he could be all before we'd spoken for longer than 10 minutes
[8:59]And then you go down and say the joy and hunger those books gave me then the sense of possibility of being with or even just around
[9:06]This brilliant person who could write a heartbreakingly perfect sentence just as easily as whisper something delicious and filthy in my ear
[9:14]Or touch my wrist in a way that made me feel understood. It makes me a little sad. No sad now to know I'll never read any of them ever again
[9:23]Who of that passage? Thank you
[9:27]Well, I mean to be perfectly honest. It's you know the pitfalls of falling in love with a writer
[9:33]And you know any kind of creative person
[9:37]I think creativity is a big touchstone in this book to be creative and to know and love creative people
[9:43]But yeah, I mean reading the book of that's written by someone you care for and are close to is
[9:53]You know, I don't really know that there's a similar experience. It's an insight into who they are as a person the way their mind
[10:00]works and it's an incredibly intimate thing,
[10:02]especially to read early drafts of something
[10:05]or before something is polished and finished.
[10:08]But yeah, I think it's just for someone like Amelia
[10:12]who is an artist herself,
[10:13]I think she places a grain amount of importance
[10:18]on creative work and she takes it very much to heart
[10:23]and she's a great admirer of his, her ex-Michael,
[10:26]who she was supposed to go to Rome with as a writer.
[10:29]And she loves him, she wants to know him
[10:32]and he won't let her.
[10:33]And so the books are one way she tries.
[10:37]Wow.
[10:39]And it's sort of funny, the thought that like now
[10:43]you don't have the option of sort of shutting someone out
[10:46]once you have a book out there.
[10:48]Like totally, it's very serious.
[10:50]It'll probably be out by the time this airs.
[10:52]But like just the thought that anybody could be like,
[10:54]oh no, I already read your book
[10:55]and everything about you by the time you say hello,
[10:57]it's like a very odd thing, right?
[11:00]And yours is a mentor, please.
[11:02]You don't get to choose what you share.
[11:04]I don't know, no, definitely not.
[11:06]It's an incredibly vulnerable thing.
[11:08]You have clearly dated a writer, right?
[11:11]I'm guessing because it sounded like
[11:13]that came from a personal place.
[11:15]Tell me, yeah, it's not a one.
[11:16]It's not a one to one.
[11:18]I want to be very clear.
[11:20]But yeah, that was a formative relationship for sure.
[11:24]I don't know that I will ever date a writer again.
[11:27]Full disclosure, you know,
[11:29]it's just someone whose mind works similarly to yours.
[11:33]That can be great.
[11:34]It can be horrible.
[11:36]I think it all just totally depends.
[11:38]But you know, I obviously have a great deal of admiration
[11:41]for people who are not just smart, but right, beautifully.
[11:46]I, you know, it obviously means a lot to me
[11:49]to know and read people like that.
[11:51]So it was, you know, it was the combination of a lot of things.
[11:55]You know, the attraction was layered.
[11:58]It also happened many years ago.
[11:59]I was much younger.
[12:00]So I think that that has a lot to do with it.
[12:03]And yeah, I mean, again, I sort of set this book in rum
[12:07]to figure out how I felt about Rome.
[12:08]I think I wrote some version of a past relationship
[12:12]to figure it out for myself.
[12:14]It's how I make sense of a lot of things, to be honest.
[12:18]I think many people relate to that.
[12:20]I'm saying fiction.
[12:23]I mean, it's all these fragments, right?
[12:25]And they all like show up, you know, it's like going through
[12:29]one of those weird voice distortion, this machine's where,
[12:32]like, it comes out a little differently, but it's still a take
[12:36]on what you have been thinking at a totally.
[12:39]So what was, tell me the story of selling this book
[12:43]and getting your first book deal and that excitement.
[12:45]I'm assuming.
[12:46]But anyway, tell me all about that.
[12:47]Yeah.
[12:48]Oh gosh.
[12:49]I mean, it's funny.
[12:50]It all happened in COVID.
[12:51]The book sold in October 2020.
[12:54]I signed with my agent August of that year.
[12:57]So it happened pretty quickly once, I feel like once things
[13:01]started to be in motion, they sort of took on a momentum
[13:04]in life of their own.
[13:06]But signing with my agent was sort of a magical experience
[13:10]and that she read my book in one day.
[13:12]And, you know, it was just, it's sort of what that relationship
[13:16]is supposed to be because that person is your advocate.
[13:19]And I think they really just have to live and breathe
[13:22]for your book, which I really felt that she did.
[13:25]None of the, all the restaurants in Rome in the book
[13:28]are real places, but I don't name any of them.
[13:31]And when my agent read the book, she knew exactly
[13:35]what all of them were.
[13:36]Wow.
[13:38]When that happens, you're like, OK, so the universe is
[13:41]trying to tell me something.
[13:43]I clearly need to work with this person.
[13:46]So, you know, the experience of being out on submission
[13:50]was, you know, which is when the book goes out
[13:52]to different editors and they consider it,
[13:55]was one of the more stressful periods of my life.
[13:58]I believe, and I believe in this book,
[14:00]and I believe in it now, but we talked about vulnerability.
[14:03]I mean, it doesn't get more vulnerable than that.
[14:06]And it's also, and I don't know how much people know this,
[14:09]but it's not really enough for an editor to love your book.
[14:11]A lot of other people at the publishing house
[14:13]have to love it too.
[14:14]A lot of things have to fall into place.
[14:17]And the money has to be, you know, it's all,
[14:19]it's all connected. A lot of things have to line up.
[14:21]So it was a very stressful two weeks,
[14:24]but I was very happy to land at Grand Central.
[14:26]My editor is actually married to an Italian,
[14:28]and she is an Italy right now.
[14:30]So it all happened.
[14:31]Yeah, well, that's wonderful.
[14:34]And two weeks, by the way, is short.
[14:37]It's short, it's short, it's short, but intense.
[14:40]Yeah, OK, I mean, sometimes now I'm on the publishing side too.
[14:44]And sometimes I don't even like open, you know,
[14:47]by the time it goes through different people
[14:49]or whatever, I don't know,
[14:50]but I have submitted myself and been like every day,
[14:53]like emailing my agent.
[14:54]What about now?
[14:55]Well, who applied today?
[14:56]What's the latest?
[14:57]As a publisher, I try so hard to be like,
[15:00]like let's just get the word out.
[15:01]Like somebody is sitting on pins and needles waiting for us.
[15:04]So I know, and I made the mistake.
[15:06]My agent asked me at the beginning.
[15:08]She was like, do you want to know selective news,
[15:11]or do you want to know everything?
[15:12]And I foolishly said, I wanted to know everything.
[15:15]So I was a little bit too much information for me.
[15:20]I might next go around, I might approach it differently.
[15:23]Interesting.
[15:25]Have you already written another book,
[15:26]or are you writing another book,
[15:28]or what's the latest with that?
[15:29]I'm writing very early stages,
[15:32]but I'm hoping to have a full draft by the end of the year.
[15:35]I'm nothing without a deadline,
[15:37]so I'm trying to figure out ways to put the heat on myself
[15:41]in that way.
[15:42]So I actually finished.
[15:43]But yeah, the wheels are turning awesome.
[15:47]And what do you like to read?
[15:48]What are you reading right now?
[15:49]What am I reading right now?
[15:50]Well, I, so I'm about to go on this trip,
[15:52]and I have six books in my suitcase,
[15:54]which is a little excessive, but it's just like me,
[15:56]but yeah, I always err on the side of more,
[16:00]because you never know how to do it out.
[16:03]But I actually, I just finished the God of Small Things,
[16:06]which I am incredibly late to, but was wonderful.
[16:10]And it's interesting.
[16:13]I really love writing in a sensorial way,
[16:16]staying close to the census is something that has always
[16:20]really been a hallmark of the way that I write.
[16:22]And Arandadi Roy in that novel,
[16:25]she sort of takes it a step further
[16:27]and is like making up her own kind of language and idioms.
[16:30]It's so cool.
[16:31]And I feel like I'm gonna be thinking about that book
[16:33]and it's ending for a long time.
[16:35]But I feel very lucky
[16:37]and taking a galley of the new Camila Sean City with me
[16:40]to Italy and she wrote Home Fire.
[16:43]And she has a new book called Best of Friends.
[16:45]It's out in September.
[16:46]And I love her writing.
[16:48]So I'm really excited for that.
[16:53]Amazing.
[16:53]And when you're not writing and you live in the city,
[16:56]what do you like to do?
[16:57]Aside from go to bars by yourself.
[16:58]I do like to do a fair amount of that.
[17:03]And with friends, you have ones.
[17:06]I love to go to bars with and restaurants with.
[17:09]Yeah, I mean, it's funny now that,
[17:11]well, I guess we can't say COVID is over,
[17:13]but we're starting to travel and be out in the world again,
[17:16]which I'm obviously very excited for.
[17:19]But I never wanna forget how New York was sort of there
[17:22]for me during COVID in different ways.
[17:25]And I wonder if you feel this way too,
[17:27]but I live on 90th between Park and Lex.
[17:29]So I'm right next to the reservoir
[17:31]and the bridal path in that part of Central Park.
[17:34]And I'm a runner and I like to run probably three,
[17:37]four times a week.
[17:38]And I just remember when there was so little we could do
[17:41]and everything was standing still,
[17:42]just being able to go there every day
[17:45]and see how things were changing.
[17:46]It was spring at the beginning of COVID.
[17:48]So seeing how the park was changing,
[17:51]even in these small little ways
[17:52]just sort of connected me back to the world in a way.
[17:57]So yeah, I mean, I won't say it made me fall back
[18:01]and love with New York.
[18:02]I've lived here for so long.
[18:03]But you know, like any long-term relationship,
[18:05]you go through ebbs and flows.
[18:07]So we're back in the flow.
[18:09]I think it's great.
[18:12]I've never really considered my relationship with New York
[18:16]as like a romantic one, but now I'm gonna go reevaluate.
[18:22]Yeah, I feel like I've been kind of annoyed
[18:25]at New York lately.
[18:25]So I mean, very easy to do.
[18:28]Yeah, absolutely.
[18:29]I mean, many, many times.
[18:31]Yeah, interesting.
[18:32]Well, now I feel like also New York is sort of misbehaving.
[18:35]There's so much crime right now.
[18:37]It is.
[18:38]It's all interesting times.
[18:41]Interesting times.
[18:42]Yes, we need to reel back in New York City.
[18:45]Yes, sort of the dog has a little bit better or something.
[18:50]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[18:53]Ooh, the biggest thing I think is right every day.
[18:56]And I have been delinquent in that lately.
[19:00]It's interesting.
[19:01]I'm working on this new novel now.
[19:03]I wish I'd started it a year ago.
[19:04]And it was advice that I got and I just ignored.
[19:07]And I wish I hadn't and I won't again.
[19:10]But I'd say right every day, you know,
[19:14]just stay connected with that part of yourself.
[19:17]The old story goes, you know,
[19:20]the young aspiring writer asked the established one, you know,
[19:24]how do I become a writer?
[19:25]And the older one says do literally anything else.
[19:29]Unless you can't do anything else in which case, right every day.
[19:33]And it's, you know, it's an old advice,
[19:36]but I think it's the only real advice I would have
[19:40]because it's just what you have to do.
[19:43]Yeah.
[19:45]I love it.
[19:45]Very true.
[19:46]If someone recently said, if you're not going into the document
[19:50]every day, then you might as well like start
[19:52]every with a new novel every single time, you start again.
[19:55]You have to say connected to it.
[19:57]I mean, and that's why like I'm one of those people
[19:59]that carries notebook.
[20:00]everywhere. And a lot of this novel was composed of notes that I've written over the past five
[20:06]years. I have notes in my phone. It's, you know, because too many times I like woken up at night
[20:12]and had a great idea. And I'll be like, Oh, you know, I'll remember in the morning. I never do.
[20:18]I don't make that mistake anymore. But no, I mean, you always you have to stay connected.
[20:23]Yeah, I would agree with that. And what is your when you go to Rome at the time? Like, what
[20:29]are some of your favorite meals or dishes to order? I would say Grecia pasta, mostly because
[20:39]I can't get it here. You know, it's not as common on menus as like an omeletry chiana or
[20:44]carbonara. And yeah, like a really good Negroni Grecia. And it's just, you know, the concept of
[20:52]of a parativo doesn't exist in New York. And I just, I'm really looking forward to that. I love
[20:59]just the fact that the city sort of not shuts down, but lulls a little bit in that hour around like
[21:06]6pm 7pm. And I'm actually going to Sicily for the first time this time. And I'm really excited for
[21:14]all the food there that I've never experienced all the seafood. And they just have a very different
[21:19]way of life and way of living in Sicily. So I'm excited to experience that. I'm very jealous.
[21:26]I think, very, very jealous. Well, thank you so much, Francesca. This has been so fun. Thank you
[21:32]for whisking me away to Rome by reading your book. And even though I can't come with you,
[21:36]now I have all the senses and what it feels like to be out and about and all of it. So thank you.
[21:46]Oh, thank you, City. It was so lovely to talk to you too. All right. Good luck. Thank you.
[21:52]Bye.
[21:54]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[21:57]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:02]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[22:07]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures
[22:12]Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[22:16]fantastic intro and out trim music.