The Angel of Rome

(Run Time: approx. 8.25 hours)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes "for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous" as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places.

We all live like we're famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don't want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during "the year of my reinvention" finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch, once again "solidifying his place in the contemporary canon as one of our most gifted builders of fictional worlds" — Esquire.

Jess Walter (Author) has written eleven books, most recently the acclaimed, best-selling novel So Far Gone. His other novels include the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins and the NEA Big Read, The Cold Millions; The Zero, finalist for the National Book Award; and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award. His short fiction, collected in The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water, has won O. Henry and Pushcart prizes and appeared three times in Best American Short Stories. His work has been published in 34 languages and he lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.

Edoardo Ballerini (Narrator) - Called "a master in his field" (The New York Times) and "in a class by himself" (Oprah Daily), Edoardo is a 2 time winner, and 5 time nominee, of the Audio Publishers Associations "Best Male Narrator" Award, a two time winner of Society of Voice Arts Awards, an AudioFile Magazine "Golden Voice" and the American Library Association's 2023 "Voice of Choice." He is also a familiar face on screens, with credits ranging from the recent A Murder at the End of the World to The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. edoardoballerini.com

Julia Whelan (Narrator) is an author, screenwriter, lifelong actor, and acclaimed audiobook narrator of over 700 titles.

She is, most recently, the recipient of Spotify's Narrator of the Year Award (the most listened-to narrator globally), the first-ever Gracie Award for Best Fiction Narrator (presented by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation), the SOVAS (Society of Voice Arts and Sciences) Lifetime Achievement Award, and winner of the Audie Award for Best Fiction Narrator of 2025. She also captured both the winner and runner-up slots in the inaugural audiobook category of the Goodreads Choice Awards.

Her latest books — the Audie nominated duet romance, Casanova LLC (coming in print, Spring 2027), and the annotated Victorian poetry anthology The Poetry Of My Oxford Year — debuted exclusively on Audiobrary. jmwhelan.com