Kat's Pick Book Club

Monthly Kat's Pick Book Club at MonkeyKat Books Presents Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer.

An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.

Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of…