Andrew Sean Greer is a contemporary American novelist who writes a distinctive brand of comic fiction blending slapstick humor with poignancy. He was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Less (2017), which solidified his reputation and introduced many readers to his signature protagonist: Arthur Less, a self-doubting, middle-aged gay man whose international travels become a series of fumbling, absurd, and unexpectedly deep encounters. This archetype is central to Greer’s work, which often explores themes of love, aging, and identity through the lens of an American abroad. Greer followed Less in 2022 with Less Is Lost, a sequel that explores his life after the events of the first novel, as Arthur begins another journey of self-discovery and growth. 

Villa Coco continues this tradition, though its narrator Geoffrey is looking back on the formative Italian adventure he experienced as a young man. His youthful self, whom the older Geoffrey describes as “soulless marionette,” experiences the same pattern of comic misfortune and cultural misunderstanding that defines Arthur Less. The narrative is replete with farcical situations, from the immediate misinterpretation of his name as Giovedì (Thursday) to the overflowing septic tank and the superstitious panic over placing a hat on a bed. An overview of Greer’s authorial pattern allows the reader to understand these episodes as elements of a carefully crafted comic style. The humor illuminates the narrator’s journey from an officious young man to someone who can ultimately embrace chaos and find meaning in the absurd, a thematic hallmark of Greer’s fiction.

Greer’s comic vision in Villa Coco is inseparable from a specific real-world setting and mentor: the Santa Maddalena Foundation and its founder, Baronessa Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori. Born in Milan in 1923 into an aristocratic family with deep ties to the European art world, Monti della Corte opened the influential Galleria dell’Ariete in Milan in 1955, where she championed emerging postwar artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Alexander Calder, and Francis Bacon (the British figurative painter), becoming one of the most important gallerists of her generation. In 1967 she married the Austrian-born novelist Gregor von Rezzori, and the couple settled at Santa Maddalena, a cluster of farmhouses in the Tuscan hills near the village of Donnini, east of Florence. After her husband’s death in 1998, the Baronessa transformed the estate into a writers’ retreat, founding the Santa Maddalena Foundation in 2000 to honor his memory and to nurture international literary talent. Fellows are invited for stays of two to four weeks in stone cottages scattered across the property, where they write in solitude by day and gather in the evenings for candlelit dinners presided over by the Baronessa herself, with her beloved pugs often in attendance. Alumni of the residency include Michael Cunningham (The Hours), Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn), Edmund White (My Lives), and Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), and the foundation has become one of the most coveted retreats in the literary world.

Greer’s intimate connection to this place, at which he served as Executive Director from 2016 to 2018, is evident in the novel’s acknowledgments and its dedication to “Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori, my baronessa” (vii). The fictional Villa Coco is a vivid reimagining of the real foundation, which is celebrated for its unique atmosphere of “conviviality, long, conversation-fueled lunches and quiet rooms with views over verdant groves” (Sasseen, Rhian. “Cult Rooms: The Santa Maddelena Foundation.” Kinfolk, Sept. 2025). The novel’s portrayal of a house filled with art, sagging bookshelves, and an eclectic mix of international guests mirrors the reality of Santa Maddalena. More pointedly, the character of Lisabetta is a direct homage to the Baronessa, whose imperious personality, sharp tongue, exacting standards, and unwavering dedication to the arts are legendary among the authors who have been fellows there. This context grounds the villa’s eccentricities in a tangible reality, revealing Villa Coco as a tribute to a unique cultural institution and the singular woman who created it.