In the early 1990s, soon after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Matthew Robins, who is grieving the sudden loss of his lover, travels to Eastern Europe to claim an inheritance from a great-uncle. He discovers a world that is strange and oddly compelling. After facilitating a romance between his new friend Olga and her beloved Nina, he becomes smitten with a young local. At Olga’s urging, he uses part of his inheritance to open a gay café, runs afoul of the local authorities, and has to be rescued by his estranged brother. But perhaps his most startling and moving discovery is a series of journals in his uncle’s apartment, a thinly-veiled fictional account of a lifelong love affair between two men, a romance that survives war, genocide, and decades of Soviet repression.
BIO:
Richard Natale is a reporter and editor who has written for such publications as the New York Times, theWashington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice and Variety. He wrote and directed a gay-themed feature film romance Green Plaid Shirt, which was the closing night film at the Palm Springs Film Festival and played at 20 festivals around the world. It is currently a best-selling DVD and streaming title for Wolfe Video. He won the National Playwright’s Competition for the comedy Shuffle off This Mortal Buffalo, which was produced in Los Angeles and Kansas City. Several of his short stories have appeared in the literary magazine Wilde Oats and have been published by Torquere Press and thewritedeal.org.