On his first visit in 2004, Paul Salsini fell in love with Tuscany. He discovered an extended family of cousins and enough life stories to inspire a dozen novels. Since then, the Milwaukee author wrote six in a cycle of novels called “A Tuscan Series,” tracing a set of characters from World War II through the near present.
Now comes The Ghosts of the Garfagnana: Seven Strange Stories from Haunted Tuscany, a short story collection putting Tuscany in a spectral light. Breaking with the realism of his novels, Salsini draws from the folklore of a beautifully off-tourist mountainous corner of Tuscany. “I always felt there was something eerie, mysterious about Garfagnana,” Salsini says. He recounts a few of the legends: “The Devil’s Bridge, which the devil supposedly built in the 14th century; a witch’s coven in the mountains; a place where strange voices can be heard.” According to locals, bells and voices rise from below the waterline over a town submerged decades ago with the opening of a hydroelectric dam.
Written with an almost reportorial crispness, the stories touch on many eras, including the plague years of the Black Death, Italy’s tumultuous unification in the 19th century and even a contemporary university professor who sees ghosts.
Salsini will read from The Ghosts of the Garfagnana at Boswell Book Co. on Monday, Aug. 12, at 7 p.m.
