The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with Beautiful Ruins, the story of an almost love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962, and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later. Richard Russo calls the book “an absolute masterpiece,” and he’s not Walter’s only famous fan. Walter will discuss Beautiful Ruins, fiction, Hollywood, and more with acclaimed actor Matthew Modine, who is working on a film adaptation of Walter’s earlier novel The Zero.