The Boxer's Mask

A handsome young Roman actor stands at the dawn of his career. A chance meeting on the Metro introduces him to a circle of Anglo expats who find in him the embodiment of their dreams and doubts about Italy and its people. As a pandemic closes theaters, the whole world must don the actor's mask. Truth, trust, friendship, love, and art - all must be reimagined, rehearsed, and performed afresh.

John C. McLucas is the author of novels "Dialogues on the Beach" and "Spirit's Tether" (2017 and 2020), as well as short fiction and poetry in English and Italian. His fiction centers on relationships between and among gay and straight characters and on the performing arts in multicultural contexts. He was Professor of Italian at Towson University for thirty-six years and has numerous scholarly publications and translations. He is a trained classical singer and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church.

"We wander Rome with a wonderful cast of expats and Italians in this intelligent, wistful, and humane novel...an exploration of the masks we wear, both literal and metaphorical, of the performance of ourselves and of language, and of the ineffability of love." Elizabeth Harris

"The celebration of a friendship, an intimate and refined partnership across languages and cultures, against the backdrop of the Eternal City which, page by page, becomes the undisputed protagonist of the novel." Michele di Mauro