What Casanova Told Me: A Novel - Softcover

The sixth daring novel from Canada's pre-eminent explorer of the sexual psyche is a dazzlingly imagined story that encompasses transformation, love, archaeology and freedom.

It's 1797, and an aging, lovesick Jacob Casanova enters Venice in disguise on a public barge. There he persuades Asked For Adams, the young Puritan cousin of American President John Adams, to set out with him on a romantic odyssey through post-Byzantine Athens and Istanbul, which she lovingly records in her travel journal.

Framing their adventure is the story of beautiful Luce Adams, Asked For's twenty-first-century descendant and inheritor of her journal, who is on her way to her mother's memorial service with her mother's lover, Lee Pronski. She arrives in Venice full of expectations just as Casanova and Asked For did two hundred years earlier.

Using Asked For's journal as a guide, Luce travels through Venice, Greece and Turkey, and begins to see how she can seize experience and come to terms with her mother's love for her and for Lee. As the journeys of the two women come together, Luce finds her own way of moving through the world, and Asked For discovers how vulnerable the great Casanova was -- a man whose brilliance and generous mind make him a presence that still ignites possibilities.

Excerpt from What Casanova Told Me
Luce examined the letters first, untying the ribbon with her long skilful fingers. The staff at the Sansovinian would be pleased: not a drop of twenty-first-century moisture marred the paper bearing the watermark of the famous Italian printer Fabriano. The letters were written in French and Italian in a dramatic, eighteenth-century style. . . .

Praise for The Wives of Bath:
Lost and Delirious, the feature film based on this novel was released in 32 countries and featured at the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.

"Underneath the ribald, gothic tale of adolescent sexual awakening lies the dark, impenetrable web of gender paradox, made taut by the tension between what a young woman is, what she wants to be, and what society would have her become."
--The Gazette (Montreal)

"Each compelling plot twist comes as a shock and a surprise [and] grips and doesn't let go, until the truth is exposed."
--New York Newsday

"Singular modern panache and rare poignancy. . .extremely funny; rare verve and flare."
--The Sunday Times