"As nourishing as a three-course Italian feast, this is a fierce,
moving tribute to the ties that bind."--People (Book of the Week)
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sleepers offers a
heartfelt homage to the women who taught him courage, kindness, and the
power of storytelling: his mother, his grandmother, and his late wife.
Standing with his children near his grandmother's grave on a recent trip
to Ischia, an island off the coast of Naples, Lorenzo Carcaterra
realized how much of his life has been shaped by the women who taught
him how to look for joy and overcome sorrow. This book is his tribute to
them.
Nonna Maria, his grandmother, gave him his first taste of a loving home
during the summers he spent with her as a teenager on Ischia. With her
kindness, her humor, and the same formidable strength she employed to
make secret trips for food when the Nazis occupied Ischia during World
War II, she instilled in him the importance of community, providing
shelter for a boy whose home life was difficult.
His mother, Raffaela, dealt with daily hardships: a loveless and abusive
marriage, the burden of debt, and a life of dread. Though the lessons
she taught were harsh, they would drive Lorenzo from the world they
shared to the better one she always prayed he would find.
The third woman is his wife, Susan, a gifted editor and his professional
champion. Their marriage lasted three decades before her death from lung
cancer in 2013. While their upbringings were wildly different, their
love and friendship never wavered--and neither did her faith in
Lorenzo's talent and potential as a writer.
