The Girl on the Via Flaminia, first published in 1949, is a novel of life in Rome, Italy, shortly after the end of World War II. Allied troops occupy the city and the Italians struggle to cope with the soldier’s presence while at the same time beginning the slow process of rebuilding their lives and their devastated country. One soldier arranges to share an apartment with an Italian women he has met by pretending they are married…but the situation soon becomes complicated. The Girl on the Via Flaminia was the basis for the 1953 movie "Act of Love, " starring Kirk Douglas (although the setting in the movie was post-war France).