VILLA COCO
An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.
Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man,
An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.
Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late. Told with the signature wit, charm, and humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself, a meditation on how seriously we ought to take ourselves, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who we’ve always wanted to be.
- Doubleday
- Hardcover
- June 2026
- 288 Pages
- 9780385551977
Buy the Book
$30.00
About Andrew Sean Greer
ANDREW SEAN GREER is the bestselling author of seven previous works of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize winner Less and its companion, Less Is Lost. He lives in San Francisco and Venice, Italy.
Praise
“[Greer] captures the allure of la dolce vita—Renaissance paintings and books, bottles of Lambrusco wine and gelato—all bathed in a buttery Tuscan light.” —TIME
“Feel[s] like a vacation.” —Vogue
“Witty [and] stylish . . . Villa Coco is all but frescoed with figurative language, and Greer’s seemingly effortless storytelling belies the careful craft of his metaphors and similes. . . . This is a fundamentally pleasant book for unpleasant times, the kind of novel in which a car breaks down and that turns out to be exactly what should have happened. As Greer ultimately suggests, true charm is something you have to try on as you might a dead man’s suit, until what feels counterfeit becomes truly your own. It often begins in fraud and grows into a funny story—sometimes passing, fleetingly, through sorrow on the way. In that regard, the relentlessly charming Villa Coco is its own proof of concept.” —The Atlantic
“[Villa Coco is] packed with warmth, wit, and charm [and a] steady supply of humor. . . . [A] perfect summer cocktail [of a novel].” —The Boston Globe
“What a strange thing. A smart, fizzy novel about how right life can be. In Tuscany! With olive groves! . . . [Villa Coco’s] easygoing warmth gathers into a smile of a coming-of-age tale.” —Chicago Tribune