The Marriage of the Sea: A Novel

In a damp Venetian palace Oswaldo contemplates the ravages of time to his body and his beloved city. In New York Lach savors his freedom having just dropped Vera to join his new love Francesca in Venice. In rainy London Max packs for New Orleans in pursuit of Lucinde a woman he barely knows. From New Orleans Lucinde flies to the aid and comfort of Vera who has accepted a grant to paint in Venice. While elsewhere in the Crescent City Anton leaving for Venice sketches a good-bye upon the slumbering body of his wife Josephine. With wit sympathy and surpassing deftness Jane Alison choreographs an intricate dance among these characters whom love and loneliness aspiration and desperation have drawn to two famously romantic venal and elusive cities of water.