The tutor : a novel
(Book)

"Recent Yale philosophy grad and late-bloomer, Alice, wants to find a way to be close to her boyfriend in Paris, with enough space to sow a few oats. Rome fits, so off she goes. Her goals? To have some fun, find a muse, make art, start a life. Instead, she finds herself a muse to a series of men--a pushy TV-host dwarf, lonely banker, alcoholic playboy, bondage-obsessed prince, and the disillusioned Oscar-winning film director, Frank Colucci. The middle-aged Frank is in Rome to film the last of his famed movie series, but longs to get back to art films. Alice, still wandering Rome as lost and confused as the day she arrived the previous year, tumbles into Frank's life, and he hires her as his philosophy tutor. Although at opposite poles of life with seemingly little in common--the bright but broke Alice is just getting started and has few prospects, and the married-with-kids wealthy Oscar-winner Frank disillusioned and ready to quit--the two form an instant bond. Both are lost and frustrated and not helped by forces around them-the huge over-budget and troubled movie, financial stress, Frank's grief, Alice's unrequited ambition, and each of their competing desires. Thus, what should be the usual ugly spiral between an older, powerful man using his position to seduce a confused and lost young woman, instead becomes a sweet and simple friendship between two kindred spirits who touch each other's lives in the brief period they spend together."--Provided by publisher.