I hated living in Rome so much that after a year I moved from a run down apartment in the Monti district on Piazza della Zingari to a rustic stone farmhouse in Umbria near the hilltop town of Todi. I had to escape the people, the dirt, the buses, the crime, and the noise, especially the noise. I spent two years in that house, in quiet isolation, working on a book; by the time I finished, I was talking to the lizards and the sheep. When they started answering, I knew it was time to leave.
I recently spent a week in Rome in the up-and-coming Pignetto district. One night, walking the streets with my friend Romy, she asked me, “How long has it been since you were here?” “Three years.” “And has anything changed?” She was right. Nothing had changed. Nothing. Even the books at Feltrinelli were shelved in the same spots. La città eterna hadn’t changed, but I had: I actually enjoyed being back in Rome, among the people, the dirt, the crime, and the noise. I still didn’t like the ATAC buses, but now that I can afford to take taxis, so what? I had such a good time I’m actually considering spending the summer in Rome, working on my Rome novel. Now that all the “writers” are going to Berlin because of the cheap rents and articles in the New York Times telling them where to go to be “trendy” (remember all those great expat novels that came out of Prague during the early 90s? I didn’t think so), who the hell wants to go there? Give me pasta at Da Francesco and gelato at Della Palma over Schinken und Käse any day.