Set in September 1974, the novel follows Nicholas, a young English artist adrift and desperate, who meets legendary Italian film designer Danilo Donati in Venice. Donati, working on Fellini’s Casanova for Federico Fellini, takes Nicholas on as an apprentice and draws him into the constructed dreamworld of Rome’s Cinecittà studios. As their relationship deepens, they move from the artifice of Casanova to the darker set of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Against the backdrop of Italy’s violent Years of Lead, Nicholas’s hidden secret allows him to pass unnoticed in a world built on illusion—until his presence unintentionally triggers a devastating tragedy.