As featured in The New York Times, Mary Trump and E. Jean Carroll are collaborating with Jen on a serialized romance novel called THE ITALIAN LESSON. Mary is writing the novel, Jen is editing, and E. Jean is advising and responding to readers’ questions. The trio is releasing Mary’s novel in segments on backstoryserial.com (which is on Substack). You can read everything in one place through chapter two by linking: https://www.backstoryserial.com/p/the-italian-lesson.

Get a taste of the ITALIAN LESSON with this opening passage:

The last time I saw him, I wanted him dead. Now here he was. Standing by the door, very much alive. When I opened my eyes I couldn’t see him clearly –– the muffled sounds of the EKG and the low thrum of the fluorescent lights made my head hurt and he hung back in the shadows.

Still, I thought I saw the corner of his mouth curved upward in the beginning of a smile, the kind of smile he flashed at me when he knew he’d won.

He moved toward the bed. I pretended not to notice and turned away as best I could, feigning disorientation. The closer he got the further away my life seemed. My life, the idyllic life I had built away from him, was slipping away. Then I remembered once wanting him dead—I had felt such horrible guilt afterward. It just wasn’t like me. But I was a different person now, to the extent that that’s possible. He reached for my hand and, before I lost consciousness again, I thought, “Instead of wanting him dead, I should have been more proactive.” And I felt no guilt at all.



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Get Backstory Serial and the Italian Lesson
Press | Backstory Serial on Substack | THE ITALIAN LESSON

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