The Fearless Flag Thrower of Lucca – Nine Stories of 1990s Tuscany
Father Lorenzo, Ezio and Donna, Dino and Sofia, Lucia and Paolo—all the beloved characters are back with new challenges and adventures in the sixth, and last, of Paul Salsini’s sweeping “A Tuscan Series.”
The new book is “The Fearless Flag Thrower of Lucca: Nine Stories of 1990s Tuscany,” and it brings the people of the fictional village of Sant’Antonio, and their relatives in Florence, to the Twentieth Century.
Among the nine stories is one inspired by an actual event that occurred in Italy in 1991. Thousands of Albanians commandeered a ship and forced it to cross the straights and go to Bari, in the Pugia region. This is used as a setting for a story in which an eight-year-old boy dramatically changes the lives of Dino and Sofia.”
In another story, Ezio, the partisan hero of the first book in the series, “The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany,” has finally finished the novel he had been writing for decades. To his surprise, it’s made into a film by one of Italy’s most famous directors. A best-selling real book influences another story as Frances Mayes’ “Under the Tuscan Sun” helps turn around a sagging tourist business in Cortona. And anyone who has been thrilled watching the skills of a group of flag throwers dressed in medieval costumes will enjoy the title story, in which a centuries-old tradition is shattered.
About Paul Salsini (Milwaukee, Wisconsin Author)
Paul Salsini is a veteran Milwaukee journalist who also taught in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University for many years. He and his wife Barbara have three children and four grandchildren and live in Milwaukee, Wis. In 2011, he received the Sons of Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci Award for Excellence in Literature.
His father and materNal grandparents were born in the same village in Tuscany and he still has relatives there. He is the author of seven works of fiction set in Tuscany. Six are grouped in "A Tuscan Series": "The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany" (The book received First Place in Fiction from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and First Place from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association); "Sparrow’s Revenge: A Novel of Postwar Tuscany"; "Dino’s Story: A Novel of 1960s Tuscany"; "The Temptation of Father Lorenzo: Ten Stories of 1970s Tuscany" (The book won First Place from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association and honorable mention from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.); "A Piazza for Sant’Antonio: Five Novellas of 1980s Tuscany" and "The Fearless Flag Thrower of Lucca: Nine Stories of 1990s Tuscany."
In 2019 he published another book set in Tuscany: "The Ghosts of the Garfagnana: Seven Strange Stories from Haunted Tuscany." He is also the author of a children's book, "Stefano and the Christmas Miracles."
