Bus 64 - Roma - Paperback

by Umberto Bartolomeo (Author)

Rome's notoriously crowded BUS 64 crawls from the Vatican, through the historic center, to Stazione Termini... Crammed inside are the priest, butcher, tourist, gypsy, secretary, business tycoon, homeless schizophrenic, African immigrant... Teeming with the thoughts, dreams and passions of modern Romans, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the Eternal City, the 49 stories in BUS 64 continually shift gears between elegy, satire, whimsy, shocking realism, fable, farce and more... each style riveting in its quite different way. As the loaded bus plods on, readers will catch whiffs of authors ranging from Boccaccio to Steinbeck, Henry Miller to Hans Christian Andersen... all fused in a mature literary voice all its own. Filled with wit and acute perceptions - emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual - this high-spirited portrait of modern Rome has got edge, heart, guts, and verbal artistry. Above all, it has the FEEL of Rome. If you know and love Rome, BUS 64 will delight you. And if you haven't been there, a ride through this book is almost as good as a visit!

Author Biography

Umberto Bartolomeo lived in Rome for 15 years, where he spent 3 hours a day riding the public buses. There, he taught English at John Cabot University, where he founded the American Language Program, and served as Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. He now lives in the Sierra Nevadas in northern California, and still pines for the Eternal City as a kind of Paradise Lost.