Over the past several years, "the American in Tuscany" has become a literary subgenre. Launched by the phenomenal success of Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, bookstores now burgeon with nimble, witty accounts of this clash in cultures-Americans trying to do American things in Italy and bumping against a brick wall of tradition. Before this subgenre exhausts itself, it's only fair that we hear the other side of the story-that of a native Tuscan and of dozens of Americans who have stormed through his life and homeland, determined to find in it whatever they are looking for, whether quaintness or wisdom, submission or direction. There is no one better to provide this view than Dario Castagno. A Tuscan guide whose client base is predominantly American, Dario has spent more than a decade taking individuals and small groups on customized tours through the Chianti region of Tuscany. Reared in Britain through early childhood, he speaks English fluently and is therefore capable of fully engaging his American clients and getting to know them. Too Much Tuscan Sun is Dario's account of some of his more remarkable customers, from the obsessive and the oblivious to the downright lunatic. It is also a primer on Tuscany--its charms and its culture. Structured around a typical Tuscan year, Dario takes us through the sights, smells, and sounds of Chianti during each of the twelve months, including the festivities and pageantry that accord with the season, most notable the Palio-the bareback horse race that consumes the social energies of the people of Siena for all of July and August. Dario also intersperses an account of his own life and times-that of a transplanted British "little lord" who learns to love the wilds of Chianti; of his discovery and adoption of abandoned peasant farmhouses; of his apprenticeship in the wine industry; and of his arduous transformation from bohemian layabout to thriving Tuscan guide. But the bulk of the book is devoted, with humor and affection, to the Americans he has met-the vain, the silly, the ignorant, the ambitious, the horny, the condescending, the charming, and the outright pathological. Some of them have made his life hell and live in his nightmares; others became lifelong friends.

Novelist Rodi (Fag Hag, The Sugarman Bootlegs) launches a broadside against the depiction of Jane Austen as a "a woman's writer ... quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzily, swooningly romantic - the inventor and mother goddess of 'chick lit.'" Instead he sees her as "a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century." In this volume, which collects and amplifies two-and-a-half years' worth of blog entries, he combs through the first three novels in Austen's canon - Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park - with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she's a romantic of any kind. "Hiarious ... Rodi's title is a tribute. He's angry that the Austen craze has defanged a novelist who's 'wicked, arch, and utterly merciless. She skewers the pompous, the pious, and the libidinous with the animal glee of a natural-born sadist' ... Like Rodi, I believe Austen deserves to join the grand pantheon of gadflies: Voltaire and Swift, Twain and Mencken." - Lev Raphael, The Huffington Post

Robert Rodi's follow-up to THE SUGARMAN BOOTLEGS once again finds him mixing lethal social satire and nail-biting suspense, in the classic Alfred Hitchcock tradition. When financial collapse hits Marcus Hyde - a fussy, high-end art dealer - he's forced to give up his spacious apartment and move in with his sister Pamela, who's large, slovenly - and titanically pregnant. But there's even worse in store for Marcus when Baby is born. He's never seen anything more horrifying than this scarlet, steaming, shrieking lump of raw greed and unchecked will, with yellow eyes and fingernails like teeth. And when things start happening - terrible things; deadly things - Marcus alone understands why. And Marcus alone realizes that for his own safety and sanity ... Baby must go. A wry, wicked tale of psychological (and biological) horror, BABY is endlessly addictive - a postmillennial mash-up of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Psycho." Hommages a Alfred is a series of novels inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, incorporating mystery, menace, murder, and mordant wit.

Novelist Rodi (Fag Hag, The Sugarman Bootlegs) continues his broadside against the depiction of Jane Austen as a "a woman's writer ... quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzily, swooningly romantic - the inventor and mother goddess of 'chick lit.'" Instead he sees her as "a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century." In this volume, which collects and amplifies three years' worth of blog entries, he combs through the final three novels in Austen's canon - Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion - with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she's a romantic of any kind. "Hiarious ... Rodi's title is a tribute. He's angry that the Austen craze has defanged a novelist who's 'wicked, arch, and utterly merciless. She skewers the pompous, the pious, and the libidinous with the animal glee of a natural-born sadist' ... Like Rodi, I believe Austen deserves to join the grand pantheon of gadflies: Voltaire and Swift, Twain and Mencken." - Lev Raphael, The Huffington Post

A wildly irreverent satire of gender identity and family dynamics, Rodi's 1995 novel has been long out-of-print; now it returns, its NSFW hilarity as timely as ever - if not timelier. Mitchell Sayer, a buttoned-down gay attorney at a prestigious Chicago law firm, discovers he has a long-lost twin. But his well-ordered life comes apart at the seams when the separated siblings finally meet, and Mitchell discovers his brother Donald is better known as Kitten Kaboodle, star of the city's most infamous drag revue. Plunged into a chaotic world where he's forced to confront his own fluid masculinity, Mitchell learns that appearances aren't just deceiving - they're even more disturbingly revealing. Building to a riotous climax in which identities blur and destinies go bust, all to the accompaniment of a cabaret pianist, Drag Queen is a rip-snorting romp through wigs and wardrobes, wit and wantonness. "A plateful of giddy meringue from the undisputed doyen of the effervescent gay novel of manners." - Kirkus

When two friends discover old video footage of an unknown saloon singer, they try to pass it off as bootlegs of a long-lost cabaret legend. But their prank backfires when the viral sensation takes on a vivid - and lethal - life of its own...and as its fame increases, so does the body count. Scaldingly funny, brutally unsentimental, nerve-shreddingly suspenseful - and featuring a mid-story switcheroo on par with Hitchcock's "Psycho" - THE SUGARMAN BOOTLEGS reads like the bastard child of "All About Eve" and "Frankenstein." It's a highly addictive cross-cultural mash-up as only Robert Rodi (FAG HAG, BABY) could do it. Hommages a Alfred is a series of novels inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, incorporating mystery, menace, murder, and mordant wit.

Avery Overman has a very high temperature. In fact, his mom says he's "burning up" and makes him stay in bed in the middle of the day. Avery doesn't like being treated like a baby, but he has to admit he isn't feeling very good; he's dizzy and he's sweating a lot. When he accidentally falls out of his covers, he notices how much nicer it looks under the bed: darker, quieter, and cooler. So he shimmies beneath the box spring...and discovers that Underbed is actually a bigger place than he ever imagined-a strange world filled with cattle rustlers and mobsters and robots and alligators, and a slippery menace called Copperhead who seems to be after Avery himself. His only hope of survival is a charming but mysterious protector who is never quite what he seems to be. Wickedly funny, fast-paced and suspenseful, Avery Overman's Adventures In Underbed is a 21st-century descendant of Alice In Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, with more crazy changes of scene than you can get from flipping TV channels. It's a wild ride through sheer imagination, with an ending that warms the heart.

The riotous follow-up to Rodi's cult hit Fag Hag, Closet Case turned the genre of the gay coming-out story inside-out and upside-down. Long out of print, this 1993 comic tour de force now returns to delight and enlighten a whole new generation. Lionel Frank is a workaholic account executive at an upscale advertising agency, in charge of the uber-masculine All-Pro Power Tools account. But Lionel has a secret life-one spent huddled in his car, dialing phone-sex numbers like 1-800-BOY-TOYZ, or lurking in the shadows of gay strip clubs with his flamboyant hairdresser friend, Tone. When continued professional success forces a choice between his two lives, Lionel decides to bury his sexuality forever...a task easier said than done. His increasingly calamitous cover-ups finally reach critical mass at a client's retreat on a Wisconsin lake, where Lionel-who's always said he'd rather die than come out-finds himself facing a situation where the choice is exactly that. "A joyride of a book...infectious...hard to put down." - Boston Phoenix "Utterly hilarious...You'll experience anew what it's like to laugh with a book." - NewCity Chicago

An immediate cult sensation when it was first released in 1992, Fag Hag gave birth to a genre that later reached mainstream popularity in "Will and Grace." Long out of print, the novel finally returns to shock and delight a whole new generation. Natalie Stathis is a big, flamboyant girl with a big, obsessive crush on a gorgeous gay artist, Peter Leland. She's managed to become his best friend and constant companion, and gleefully uses her influence over him to poison every one of his budding romances-on the principle that when he's run through all the men in town, it'll finally be her turn. But when Peter finds true love in the unlikely arms of Lloyd Hood-a taciturn, gun-toting survivalist-none of Natalie's usual plots and stratagems can separate them. She's forced to throw caution to the wind and discretion out the door, and begin a campaign to win back her man that is actively, even dangerously, criminal. Brazenly irreverent, hilariously caustic, and grippingly suspenseful, Fag Hag is a novel you won't easily forget. "Absorbing and powerful...Larger-than-life...A one-two punch of outrageous humor and sobering pathos...Succeeds admirably both as satire and as flat-out entertainment." - New York Native

"Best in Show" meets "Marley and Me" in the hilarious (mis)adventures of an unlikely duo competing for glory on the pro dog circuit
An urban intellectual and a scruffy, disobedient Sheltie team up to conquer the Canine Agility pro-circuit in this hysterical account of the quest for glory in the competitive dog world. A cousin to the popular best-in-breed show, agility competitions resemble doggie boot camp: dogs scamper across teeter-totters, jump tires, and scoot down tunnels-without leashed guidance from a human. Taking home ribbons requires a focused handler and a cooperative dog.
Robert Rodi is a self-proclaimed Blue-stater who prefers fine wine and Italian literature (in "Italian") to SUVs and suburban sprawl. His dog Dusty's scrawny build and skittish personality make him an unnatural competitor. Nevertheless, Rodi recounts a year filled with victories, failures, and hysterical personalities, and the loving bond between one man and his bug-eyed dog.