Danielle Russo, a young journalist on the editorial staff of the Paris literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Littéraire, is sent to Sicily in 2000, to the elegant resort town of Taormina. She is to do some research on the famous writer Truman Capote’s stay there in 1950. Yet, when the young woman meets a local journalist who offers to help her, she is drawn deeper and deeper into an intriguing labyrinth of shocking "truths". The local reporter is investigating events related to a mysterious crime that also made the headlines in 1950. An elite set of intellectuals, regulars in Taormina, are involved: André Gide – historic guest at the Hotel Timeo - and Truman Capote, Jack Dunphy, Peggy Guggenheim, Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais.
Sicily, 1951. A young literature teacher secretly falls in love with Maria Venera, the most beautiful girl in town who lives in the decrepit palace of her grandfather, an old aristocrat who squandered his fortune.
Vincent and Mathias are two friends, in their thirties, who live off Vincent’s father. One day, during a meal where the wine and talk both flow a little too freely, Vincent’s father offers the two friends a bet. If they can survive seven days and seven nights in Paris with just seven Euros in their pocket, he will pay off all of their debts. If not, they will have to learn to fend for themselves. Confident of their abilities to survive in the jungle that is Paris, Vincent and Mathias willingly accept the offer, but soon regret doing so...
Lugano, Switzerland. Titta Di Girolamo is a discreet and sullen man who has been living for almost a decade in a modest hotel room, a prisoner of an atrocious routine, apparently without purpose. His past is a mystery, nobody knows what he does for a living, he answers indiscreet questions evasively. What secrets does this enigmatic man hide?
In 18th-century Sicily, deaf-mute highborn Marianna Ucrìa is forced to marry his uncle Pietro, a disgusting old man, at age 13. She bears three children before even turning 16, when she finally gives birth to a boy. Despite everything, she'll find a way to emancipate herself from the oppressive social conventions of the time.
