The End of Romance

Norma Barzman
March 2006     ISBN: 1560258136

In 1973, during the rise of the Red Brigades and the resurgence of fascism in Italy, Norma Barzman, a blacklisted screenwriter living in southern France, travels to Cremona with her husband, Henry Myers, the writer of the legendary Marlene Dietrich/James Stewart movie Destry Rides Again. Henry, a natural bon vivant and the love of Norma's life, is nursing his diminished talent in deathly isolation in New York. To bring him back to life, Norma persuades Henry to write his long dreamt-of novel on Cremona, the provincial backwater in Lombardy, Italy that produced the Cremonese violin, the sublime instrument made by the Amatis, the Guarneris, and Stradivarius.

Their adventure opens a Pandora's box of long-suppressed emotions, and forces each to reassess their feelings towards the other. Importantly, Norma--who becomes entangled with a young violinmaker--stumbles upon the mysterious origins of the violin, which unveil the suppressed history of Cremona, whose sun-bleached walls hide threatening secrets, intrigues and the shameful history of anti-Semitism in Italy. In doing so, she raises the ire of local fascists, thus putting her life in jeopardy.