otel. And perhaps it was guilt over having dismissed his father’s ideas when he was younger, but Pasquale could suddenly see it—his family’s small inn—through newly inherited eyes. Yes, this town could become a new kind of Italian resort—an American getaway, parasols on the rocky shore, camera shutters snapping, Kennedys everywhere! And if there was a measure of self-interest in turning the empty pensione into a world-class resort, so be it: the old hotel was his only inheritance, the sole familial advantage in a culture that required it.

The hotel was comprised of a trattoria—a three-table café—a kitchen and two small apartments on the first floor, and the six rooms of the old brothel above it. With the hotel c