Trout Fishing In America, a popular work I never read in school, is “an abstract book without a clear central storyline” (according to my source).

Beyond the appearance in the title, the phrase is used in various ways (mostly as a point of comic relief from mainstream American culture).

In Scheggino, a near-by commune in the Nera Valley on the other side of the mountain, no fishing lines were cast into the pond.

Yet the roasted trout we feasted on was fine, and the cast of characters assembled to perform almost exceeded nine:

Alessandro, an aptly named Italian classics teacher;
Laurie and Norma, our gracious ex-patriated Anglo hosts;
Eve, the mother of Sarah Jane, the mother of three well-behaved boys

The rest of us, I dare say, did not always follow the rules the boys set down: what else can you expect when Donald Trump, Theresa May, fashion models, murder capitals of the world, the subjunctive, Islamist or Zionist extremism, David Cameron and anti-Semitism–just to name a few of the sources of our perplexity–enter the fray in no particular order.

All the while, even so, the sunshine doggedly held sway over a long and glorious day out in the country.