Set in country villas outside of Rome in the months before Caesar's assassination, Conversations in Tusculum imagines the frustrations of fiery senators and warriors reduced to brooding in self-imposed isolation about the endangered civil freedoms of their republic... A portrait of the guilt of being merely intellectual when the world demands something more." Ben Brantley, The New York Times "Mr Nelson has charted how the chaos of the world enters in the first place: slight by slight, betrayal by betrayal, injustice by injustice, conversation by conversation." Eric Grode, The New York Sun " CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM] feels a little like Chekhov, and means to remind us of the power-hungry men currently in charge in Washington. Nelson's script, basically faithful to history, is written in a 21st-century vernacular that casts these men as Wall Street or Movie moguls on their days off. TUSCULUM is a taste well worth acquiring." Elizabeth Zimmer, Metro | Conversations In Tusculum by Richard Nelson, Paperback | Indigo Chapters