Brad Leithauser

The Promise of Elsewhere Brad Leithauser

Louie Hake teaches architectural history at a third-rate college. His second marriage is collapsing, and he's facing a potentially disastrous medical diagnosis. So he decides to treat himself to a tour of the world's most breathtaking architectural sites. He gets waylaid on his very first stop in Rome and fails to reach most of his destinations. It soon becomes clear that Louie's grand journey is less about where his wanderings have taken him and more about where his past encounters with romance have not. Whether pursuing his first wife, or his estranged current wife, or the older woman he kissed just once, Louie is destined to find love in all the wrong places.