An American Abroad Searches For Self In 'Florence In Ecstasy'
Jessie Chaffee's novel about a troubled young American woman in Florence is beautiful and exhausting; stick with it, and you'll find a thoughtful reexamination of a classic trope, the American abroad.
There's no shortage of stories in the genre of Westerners experiencing a personal disaster and then globetrotting in search of answers about themselves. There's always potential for these narratives to go awry in subtle and damning ways — to seem unthinkingly privileged and navel-gazing and selfish — and so the endeavor of writing one is both a sure thing in terms of finding an audience, and risky as a self-aware artistic endeavor.
