by Timothy Rutt
In 2008, Rebecca Bricker's son moved out of their Altadena Craftsman house to go to college. Single mom at mid-life, facing the empty nest. You know the story.
But that's not this story.
Bricker, a former magazine writer and columnist for People Magazine, sold the house and moved to Italy for a year.
Bricker writes about her odyssey in her new memoir, Tales from Tavanti.
"It had always been my dream to someday go live in Europe and write about it," Bricker said. " I had traveled in college, I had done a year at the University of Edinburgh and I just hoped to go back and live there again. I guess about eight years ago I started scouting locations."
She told her son that, once he left home, she'd be right behind him with her passport. She hadn't planned on selling the house, though: "My idea was to rent my house, because I loved my bungalow, and go off and travel for a year, maybe teach English," Bricker said. But in 2008, when the housing bubble was starting to pop, she decided to let go of the house quickly: "In the end it was the perfect solution because I was free and clear.
Her house closed on Sept. 11, 2008, and within days she was on a plane to Italy. She returned in December, and applied for an extended visa to stay there. "Italy just seemed to be a warm, inviting place," Bricker said.
In June, 2009 -- with just three duffle bags, a carryon, and some boxes of books -- she moved to an apartment in Florence along the Via Tavanti, and stayed there for a full year.
If it sounds idyllic, it wasn't: "It was Italy gone wrong within about three weeks," Bricker said. "The Under the Tuscan Sun fantasy just evaporated, but the writer in me kept saying, 'we're staying -- this is great material.'"
The "great material" included the people she met on the way: a playboy leather merchant, a Mafia princess, an olive thief. "I had thought I would stay two years -- to live the story one year and write about it the next," Bricker said, "but it was passing so quickly I wanted to capture it live the best I could. Within a few months of arrival I stopped the journaling and started writing the book."
One of the biggest changes she had to make, she said was adapting to the Italian way of life. "I kind of had to recalibrate myself," said Bricker, who describes herself as a "very linear person."
Italian life is chaotic, and they love bureacracy and layers, Bricker said. "After awhile, I really like that I din't have to plan every day, just let things evolve and unfolod. It was actually very difficult coming back to life here."
After her one year odyssey, Bricker made some inquiries to traditional publishers, but didn't raise much interest. Taking a class in digital publishing made her decide to go the self-publishing route.
She hooked up with a professional designer for the book cover, and publishes the book on-demand through CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon. Amazon can turn around book orders in a a few days, Bricker said,
She's also hitting social media hard to promote Tales from Tavanti: she has a Facebook page, a website companion to the book, she tweets, and gives talks to book groups everywhere via Skype.
And of course she's working on a follow-up: "Book Two is already in the outlining stage, and now I know the shortcuts and the pitfalls, " Bricker said. "People from the old neighborhood in Altadena are in it."
As for her current book, Bricker knows she's targeting "middle aged women, ones who want to travel." She says, "I hope what this book will generate is good conversation about life transitions -- when [expectations] in midlife aren't met, so people have to ... reinvent."
