Coming June 4, 2026

Lights, Camera, Roma

Love and Power in Italy's Greatest Film Dynasty

Mad Men meets Roman Holiday — with a suitcase full of cash and something about to go wrong.

Jack Durgin is twenty-six, carrying $120,000 in cash, and producing a Coca-Cola commercial outside Rome. The job is supposed to be simple: a sixty-second spot at a train crossing, big budget, then home.

Then Valentina walks into the casting session. She rides a dented Fiat through Rome's back streets, cooks dinner on a rooftop in Parioli, drives him to Viterbo like nothing can touch them — and she happens to be the heir to one of Italy's most powerful families. Her mother controls the money, the loyalty, the legacy. Love — only if she permits it.

Set in Rome in 1981, Lights, Camera, Roma is a story of desire, power, and what it costs to choose love inside a system designed to prevent it. Written by the producer who carried the cash.

Sixty seconds in Rome. Watch the trailer.

Historical Fiction Romance Italy 1980s

The Commercials Behind the Novel

The world this novel was born from. Two of the actual commercials produced in this period — preserved here, with the producer's permission of memory.

1981 Coca-Cola Commercial — Italy

A glimpse of the world the novel was born from. The actual sixty-second Coca-Cola commercial we shot at a train crossing outside Viterbo in the spring of 1981. Directed by Stu Hagmann, who I loved working for. Produced by me. And the first time I ever held a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cash.

1980 Michelob Light Commercial — Keystone, Colorado

The thirty-second Michelob Light spot we shot at Keystone, Colorado in December 1980 — the production that opens Lights, Camera, Roma. Directed by Stu Hagmann. Produced by me. The Lennon news had broken two days earlier, and we were standing in a snowfield in helmets and goggles trying to make a beer commercial.