Lesser Islands

WINNER: Capalbio International Prize・Carlo Marincovich Prize・2017 PEA Award

An absorbing family saga taking place over four decades and centered on the Tuscan island of Giglio—a seemingly idyllic place where the story of two sisters and the history of Italy meet in unexpected, transformative ways.

A tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean with fewer than a thousand inhabitants. An older sister, a combative mother, a hedonistic father, a grandmother who fought in the Resistance, a wild younger brother. These are the people and the place that Teresa—the younger daughter and narrator—tries to escape from, eager to find a place in the world that she can call her own.

But soon enough she'll have to reckon with the island, with the bittersweet distance separating her from her beloved yet domineering sister, and with the long shadow of the darkest...