Saints behaving badly, philosophers without noses waiting for thunder,

three men you would not want to meet,

a single bullet through the temples of the father and the son,

and a woman who sees no reason to live —until she finds the one reason worth living for…

 

These are the protagonists of the fast, ancient–contemporary tragicomedia

that knocks annoyingly at the doors of the roadside motel

where Shakespeare, Emperor Arcadius, Girolamo Bargagli, and a Hindu sage stopped for the night.

 

Alms for the seeker, and mocking for the sin,

this novel explores the quest for the one truth,

on the pilgrimage we will all make sooner or later.

 

God and His will, our souls and our own.

 

The saxophone in Pellegrina always plays a melancholic tune after

the last customer leaves.