The humorous true tale of how the author moved—against his will and his better judgement—to Italy with his wife, only to rediscover himself, his marriage, and the importance of getting in touch with his inner Italian.

After years of working on a string of sitcoms, Phil Doran suddenly found himself on the outside looking in. Just as he and his peers had replaced the older guys when he was coming up the ranks, it was now happening to him. And it was freaking him out.

After twenty-five years of losing her husband to Hollywood, Doran's wife decided it was finally time for a change—so on one of her many solo trips to Italy she surprised him by purchasing a broken-down three-hundred-year-old farmhouse for them to restore. The Reluctant Tuscan is the author's transition from a successful but overworked writer-producer in Hollywood to a man rediscovering himself and his wife while in Italy, finding happiness in the last place he expected to.

Doran finds himself navigating througth the maddening labyrinth of Italian bureaucracy just to get a road paved to their house; dealing with the foibles of their neighbors and the tangled drama of the family who sold them the home; coming to accept that the Italians live with a million laws and no rules; and learning that everything closes down for four hours in the middle of the day for lunch, wine-drinking, and lovemaking—all while Doran becomes slowly seduced by the inexhaustible beauty and tactile pleasures of Tuscany.