Bend author Joseph Olshan in Italy, where much of the action in his new novel, "Milo's Reckoning," takes place. (Submitted photo)

Author Joseph Olshan, a part-time Bend resident, will debut his new literary mystery and 11th book, “Milo’s Reckoning,” Friday at Barnes & Noble in Bend.

The book tells the story of Milo Rossi, a grad student in Italian at New York University, who seeks answers about the death of his mentor, whom a coroner said hanged himself. Rossi is disinclined to believe that verdict after spending the previous evening in his mentor’s company, discussing among other things, the life and death of Primo Levi, the real-life Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor and author who died in 1987. Milo’s search for answers brings him into contact with someone who knew his deceased brother Carlo, and a shaken Milo is driven deep into New York City Italy.

Bend-based publisher Green City Books will publish “Milo’s Reckoning” Tuesday, and prior to that, at 6 p.m. Friday, Olshan will give a presentation and talk on the book at the Bend Barnes & Noble location.

40 years in the making

“Milo’s Reckoning” ties, in a way, back to his first novel, 1985’s “Clara’s Heart,” which was made into a 1988 drama film starring Whoopi Goldberg. That debut novel won Olshan the Times/Jonathan Cape Young Writers’ Competition Young Artists Competition, which led to both plenty of publicity in the British press and plentiful foreign sales for the book.

“The book sold to, I think, 12 different foreign countries,” he said. Italy being among those, a major Italian newspaper wanted to interview him ahead of the book’s publication.

“This was around the time that Primo Levi died,” he said, “and so during the interview, they announced to me that he had died, and I burst into tears. I think the journalist was impressed that here is this American writer who loved an Italian writer that he burst into tears.”

The newspaper decided to give Olshan and his debut even more attention, and during a subsequent interview, asked him about his other favorite Italian writers. He mentioned Francesca Duranti, and after the piece published, she learned of his fandom.

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“We were eventually introduced and became very, very close friends,” said Olshan, who called her his literary mother. “She’s in a way a larger than life character, and so I ended up basing two characters in two separate novels on her. In “Milo’s Reckoning,” the character inspired by Duranti is married to a man who works for an Italian agency akin to the CIA.

“So both Primo Levi and this Italian writer have been great inspirations to my work,” Olshan said. Durant, Levi’s death, and the suicide of an Italian literature professor Olshan had known well, “all of it kind of got together in my head, and I basically spun a story out about a graduate student who finds out his mentor died and supposedly committed suicide but doesn’t believe it, and embarks on a mission to try and figure out what really happened.”

Over the years, Olshan’s books have been published by the likes of Simon & Schuster and Doubleday. But for “Milo’s Reckoning,” his first since 2018’s “Black Diamond Fall,” he went with newer Bend publishing house Green City Books, with whom he became acquainted through his own work as Editorial Director at Delphinium Books, known for its high-quality work and authors, including Duranti.

Part-time Bendite

Olshan and his partner divide their time between Bend and Vermont. Five years ago, they began spending winter and spring in Bend, which attracted them through their love of skiing, or more specifically, the lengthy season at Mt. Bachelor and its proximity to town.

“I think it’s a wonderful place, but the real draw is the fact that the ski season is very long, longer than a lot of other places in the country,” Olshan said during an interview last week. “We’re diehard skiers, and so we’re up there every weekend. We were there the last day.”

If You Go

What: Author Joseph Olshan presents “Milo’s Reckoning”
When: 6 p.m. Friday
Where: Barnes & Noble, 2690 NE Highway 20, Bend
Cost: Free
Contact: 541-318-7242