Tuesday, August 9 at 6:00 pm in the Marc Jacobs Reading Room
Local author, Michael Hartwig, will share insights from and invite creative contributions to his much-acclaimed LGBTQ fiction published during the pandemic. Two of the books – Oliver and Henry and A Roman Spell form part of the Roman Bonds Trilogy. The third book – Love Unearthed – is anticipated late in 2022. Hartwig hopes to elicit creative ideas about the plot from the audience.
In Oliver and Henry, a 20-year-old college student raised by a lesbian couple in Boston, goes to Rome to meet his biological father. He discovers troubling secrets about his past in the shadows of the Vatican and is inspired to embrace his sexuality and come out. He falls in love with a handsome Roman man and, together, they face surprising and life-changing events. The story takes place against the backdrop of ancient Roman and Renaissance art and archaeology, inviting readers to ponder paradigm-changing times.
The sequel, A Roman Spell, picks up several years later when Oliver and Giancarlo discover that their son, Luca, has special abilities, magical ones, and is connected to a past life, to a person who lived in their house during the 1500s. Luca must come to terms with his identity as a sorcerer and he and his fathers forge a new understanding of spirituality as they explore Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mysticism.
The sequel to A Roman Spell, Love Unearthed, takes place fifteen years later. Luca has come out as a gay twenty-year-old and spots a handsome man standing in front of an ancient Christian sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum that depicts Jesus as a magician (the sarcophagus actually exists). Their tumultuous romance unfolds in the context of challenges Luca’s fathers face in their relationship and a heart-wrenching celebration of the 50th anniversary of Oliver’s mothers’ relationship in Provincetown. The lessons of love, magic, and pride reach a climax, bringing full circle a trilogy that begins in Boston and traverses Rome, Florence, Venice, San Felice Circeo, Milan, the Alps, and ends in Provincetown.
Program will include readings, a period for questions/answers, and book signing in the Library’s Marc Jacobs Reading Room. Refreshments will be served.
Hartwig is a Boston- and Provincetown-based author of LGBTQ fiction. He is an accomplished professor of religion and ethics as well as an established artist. His original oil paintings are represented by On Center Gallery in Provincetown.
Hartwig grew up in Dallas but spread his wings early on – living in Rome for five years, moving to New England on his return, and then working in the area of educational travel to the Middle East and Europe.
His fiction weaves together his interest in LGBTQ studies, ethics, religion, art, languages, and travel. The books are set in international settings. They include rich descriptions and are peppered with the local language. Characters grapple not only with their own gender and sexuality but with prevailing paradigms of sexuality and family in the world around them. Hartwig has a facility for fast-paced plots that transport readers to other worlds. They are romantic and steamy as well as thoughtful and engaging. Hartwig imagines rich characters who are at crossroads in their lives. In many instances, these crossroads mirror cultural ones. There’s plenty of sexual tension to keep readers on the edge of their seats, but the stories are enriched by broader considerations – historical, cultural, and philosophical.
