However, in this tale, he writes as if he remembers spending Christmas in Venice, with the echo of singing gondoliers, once as a child and again with his wife and daughters.

As gondoliers have a reputation as the best singers in the world, and customers expect it as part of the service, a tone-deaf gondolier is unacceptable, no matter how skilled he is with his oar.. As the story unfolds, his fiancee Laura Lorenzini breaks off her engagement, and marries a 'better suitor'.

Finally, Luigi manages to reach the Great Fireboat of Venice, which sets out to save the church.

The other gondoliers notice that Luigi did not return with the fireboat, and discover him sailing on the turbulent waters of the Grand Canal.

After a long career and happy life, as with all gondoliers when they die, Luigi is set in his black boat and pushed out into the Adriatic Sea.

Goldman says he got the idea to write the book when visiting Venice with his then-wife: We were on one of the water buses, Vaporettos, and a bunch of gondoliers came rowing down the canal and they were quiet.

I suddenly turned to [my wife] Ilene and I said, 'I know why the gondoliers don't sing' and we got off the bus immediately and I went running back to the hotel.