In this compelling satirical portrait, Jennifer Juneau offers up an unmarried male literature professor, in his 40s on a teaching assignment to northern Italy, who develops an attraction to a student in his class — a woman in her thirties, wealthy, well-married, American, traveling in Europe to expand her cultural grounding as a declared poet.

What seems like a straightforward depiction of the reality-based romantic impulses of a somewhat ridiculous man becomes something a good bit more riveting — through the narrative, it becomes increasingly difficult for the reader to distinguish what is really happening from the obsessive flights of juvenile romantic fancy on the part of a loveless middle aged man, self- described as ‘a dreamer,’ and given to imaginative excess.

Isabel B. was simply exquisite. While reading Boccaccio’s interpretation of Helen in Famous Women, I pictured only Isabel B. was simply exquisite. While reading Boccaccio’s interpretation of Helen in Famous Women, I pictured only Isabel. Not just the physical attributes, but the grandeur of his analysis.

To describe Isabel’s beauty is the antithesis of Boccaccio’s account of Helen: where Helen’s bright eyes were full of happiness, Isabel’s eyes were saturated in sorrow. Where he depicted the pleasant serenity of Helen’s entire face and her charming changes of expression, Isabel’s was profoundly unemotional. I saw a mysterious woman pained by something I could never understand. A dreamer, I felt compelled to help her, become the chivalrous knight women in fiction waited for.

The professor attempts to break the ice with the woman, but she is reticent and remote, perhaps a little dangerous, but out of reach.
Three times a week for three months Isabel sat in the back of my class without uttering a word. She never raised her hand to speak, and I never called on her. She was the only native speaker of English and I felt my words fall into the clutches of her scrutiny. I glanced her way for clues. I’d even try to impress her with a rhetoric full of Americanisms. Her gaze never shifted, from the notebook on her desk.

Despite being an avowed single person, something in him compels him to seek her romantic
attention.
I didn’t understand why I was desperate for her approval until it hit me—I, the guy voted by his colleagues least likely to commit to one woman and get married, was in love. Soon I discovered wherever love goes, his evil twin misery follows.

The professor does a background check on her in the college files.
I rummaged through her file in the admissions office and found her application to the university with a summary of herself and why she had come abroad. She was a poet. Apparently she had lived in many cities before settling here. Her husband was a financial genius who made an obscene income. I was familiar with where she lived. It was a wealthy area in the hills. Did her husband travel often for business? Was she lonely? A woman accustomed to a lifestyle with a rich man would never think twice about me.

Then the elusive woman turns in a research paper which gives the professor an opportunity to request a one-on-one meeting with her. What happened is this:
After a long day of grading research papers in my cramped office I went home. I saved Isabel’s paper for last. I wanted to be as comfortable as possible and couldn’t wait to delve into it. Reading her paper will be the key, I thought, since I couldn’t obtain any of her poetry anywhere, to see what makes her tick. She had written it on the evolution of language in verse from Old English to the present. At first, egocentrically, I thought she was reaching for me by compromising our contrasting loves of literature, then concluded she had chosen a topic of interest solely for herself as a poet.
I took my time. I poured myself a glass of wine, lit a cigarette and traded my beloved Puccini for Wagner (I was in a mood) and set it thrashing in the background. I scanned the table of contents. It was flawless. Her introduction was polished and concise. Succinctness mattered to me, although I wasn’t sure if my assessment at that point was accurate or if I was biased. As I read further, I froze. Was she mocking me? The rest of her paper was written entirely in iambic pentameter with open couplets!

The professor agonizes over a memo, how exactly should he ask her to meet.
I fidgeted at the keyboard of my computer to write her an e-mail. First: “Dear Isabel, I perused your research paper with glee and found it stimulating. Unfortunately, a minor problem has surfaced. Please visit my office at your earliest convenience so we may examine it
together.”
No way. Then: “Dear Isabel, Your paper was absolutely insightful. Although I enjoyed it more than the others, I regret that you must rewrite it. If you stop by my office at your earliest convenience, I would be more than happy to take the time and go over it with you. What
mawkish idiot had love reduced me to?
Finally: “Dear Ms. B, There is a problem concerning your paper. You need to see me during my office hours.” That was that. I checked the message in the “mail sent” folder several times that evening to make sure I didn’t inadvertently sign my name, “Love, Professor.”

From this point in the narrative, the professor’s story becomes increasingly strange and ironic. A series of encounters between the professor and Isabel B turn out to be imagined, and bring into serious question the man’s grip on reality. First she appears before him in a frumpy old dress, wearing poorly applied makeup, and listens to his criticism lifelessly, subserviently, lacking in charm. That encounter, however, turns out to be a dream. Next she appears before him in total command and control, defiant and superior and supercilious in manner.
When she entered my office I was floored. It was the first time I looked into her eyes and noticed they were pale green. They were so light they looked almost invisible against a backdrop of olive skin. Naturally beautiful, she hadn’t a trace of make-up on. Sable curls cascaded past her shoulders to the middle of her back. Her figure was stunning. Above all, she didn’t deviate from the superior air that possessed her.
I sensed her impatience and that I was wasting her time. Her aura grabbed hold of my insides and twisted them into knots. I couldn’t speak. She spoke first, confidently defending her paper. She covered all angles of her research. She spoke rapidly and I loved the way her eyes blinked at the start of each sentence. I managed to tell her it was only an issue of form and handed her A Manual for Research Papers in English Literature. She looked at it for a minute and rolled her eyes.
Then the almond-shaped green of them fell upon Boccaccio’s Famous Women that sat on my desk. Convinced that our tête-à-tête would take a tactical turn, I asked her if she read it. This would leave the door wide open for conversation. The version I owned was written in Latin and Italian and she said, “Very funny,” and left my office. Her perfume lingered in the air.

In fact this never happened either, it was a daydream. Isabel B never shows up for the meeting, and she never returns to the class.

The professor stews on the situation a long time. He searches the internet and virtual sources unsuccessfully, finding nothing on her. He resorts to a meaningless affair, he pledges to change himself, All to no avail. He has no appetite, he loses weight. Insomnia invades his life. Whenever it rains, it is ‘Isabel grief-stricken.’ And if the sun was shining, it was Isabel wrapping him in her warmth.

As the story draws to its conclusion, the professor knows he has come to an impasse, unsure whether she is even real or not, but resigned to the idea that he will never see Isabel B again. Reluctantly, he understands he has got to let her go.

How he does that, exactly, forms the delightful and delicious conclusion to this sharply satirical and entertaining tale. I leave it to you to pick up a copy of the book and find out for yourself the lonesome fate of our unnamed American professor in Italy.