How could research be fun? When you are researching Giacomo Casanova, I think it anything else would be impossible. I began by googling “Women’s underwear in the 18th century” for another book. Voila! Up came this Response: “No where else can the intimate details of eighteenth century life be found than in the Memoir of Giacomo.” I bought and read all 3700 pages. Not only did I learn all about the underwear from his exploits, I fell in love. Here is a man who loved women like modern men love football, NASCAR, and corporate take-overs. From his words I learned he was funny, brilliant and irresistible. I just could not help but wonder what he would think of modern women. My book brings the infamous libertine from 1774 to 2016 where he meets Lizzy an ER doc wary of love.
This story took me to Paris to see Histoire de Ma Vie, Casanova’s handwritten memoir, on display for the first time in over two hundred years. The exhibit’s security team might tell you of the strange American who should up every morning for three days and once stood with her hands on the glass case and tears streaming.
I felt the need feel Casanova’s presence in Venice, the city of his birth and his home when he wasn’t exiled. Ca Bragadin Is now a hotel but Senore Casanova lived there for nine years. I found so much inspiration in those rooms and on those lovely streets and bridges. Who says research has to be tedious? Mine was a blast and I think it is reflected in the tone of Conjuring Casanova.
He wrote about his singular life with such exuberance and honesty, I somehow felt he was speaking only to me across the years. Now that’s good writing. This work, all thirty-seven hundred pages, inspired me to set the record straight about my friend. He is thought of today as a notorious womanizer, the ultimate love-them-and-leave- them sort of guy. He certainly was that. But for all his conquests, most of the time, he loved them with all his heart.
