Milwaukee writer Jenny Benjamin’s new novel spans hundreds of years and thousands of miles.
This Most Amazing is set in modern-day Milwaukee, but also in Italy just before the turn of the 19th Century.
The novel is told in parallel tracks - one featuring Dahlia, a current-day poet from Milwaukee; the other an 18th Century Italian peasant named Vincenzo.
Since Benjamin is a poet from Milwaukee, you might imagine she'd have an easier time crafting that character. But she said she felt at times more connected to Vincenzo.
"Anyone, I think, who writes - that's part of the process. That you do whatever you can to really get in the shoes of someone that you're writing about. Whenever I did research or whenever I was imagining him in situations, I became him." - Jenny Benjamin
The novel, published by Armida Books, is just out.
