A Hero of Two Worlds

“A Hero of Two Worlds” is a book of sweeping historical fiction set in Rome in the early 1860s, when the great fight to transform Italy into a country was raging. It traces the life of a young American sculptor named Rufus Trask from his arrival there in 1847 to his soldiering in the Union Army in the American Civil War sixteen years later. The story offers a rich portrait of life in Rome's American expatriot community, teeming with talented artists and louche flaneurs, intrigue and illicit affairs. It also plumbs Trask's double life as a carefree American devoted to his craft and a deadly fighter with republicans bent on ending authoritarian papal rule. He surfaces in Rome as the republican drums are beating across Europe: Down with the monarchies, up with republican democracies. He is in the streets when republicans chase Pope Pius IX out of the city. Trask becomes a hunted man and escapes to a remote mountain village, where he falls in love. He returns to Rome, where his life collapses as he spars with papal spies and French troops occupying the city. He eventually sails for America, where fulfills his destiny as a hero of two worlds.