Evansville made such an impact on Luisella Traversi Guerra, the Italian native’s first English-language novel spans almost a century of time in the River City.
Guerra, whose artwork was featured in the January/February 2001 issue of Evansville Living, called the River City home while her husband ran Robur Corporation, which builds gas heat pumps. A former resident of dense cities, Guerra adored and absorbed slices of the area’s culture and rural spaces.
“Having lived for seven years in Evansville in a house I loved very much, wandering in the surrounding countryside, visiting the museum, the churches, writing texts, I was able to immerse myself and imagine being part of it, to the point of having discovered that there was a beautiful story to tell in me,” she says through an interpreter.
Those experiences formed “The Story of Lucy Belmont,” a novella set in Evansville that was released in 2024. Guerra says further inspiration came from a 1990s book written by students at Hebron Elementary School students, whose teacher became the model for Lucy Belmont.
Guerra’s novel is a love letter to the kindness and relaxed pace she found here. “It is such a vibrant place that ideas for characters were everywhere,” she says.
