Casa Rossa - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Francesca Marciano (Paperback)

About the Book

In this new novel by the author of "Rules of the Wild," a family's secrets collide with history throughout three generations of a 20th-century Italian family.

Book Synopsis

A crumbling farmhouse in Puglia, Casa Rossa was bought by Alina Strada's grandfather at a time when no one else wanted it. Now busy preparing it for sale, Alina endeavors to recover the memories it still harbors--in particular of three women whose passions indelibly shaped her family's dark past. There's grandmother Renee, whose love of novelty won over everything else. Alina's mother, Alba, whose marriage to a screenwriter inspired both great art and unbearable sadness. Finally Isabella, Alina's sister, whose fervent politics drove her to ever-escalating betrayals. Moving from Jazz Age Paris to 1950s Rome to modern-day New York, but returning always to the uncompromising beauty of Italy's south, Casa Rossa is a spellbinding story of how loves and losses, secrets and lies, resonate across the generations.

Review Quotes

"An engaging, sweeping and compulsively readable novel." --The Washington Post Book World

"An enthralling tour de force ...The gritty details of modern Italian life make Casa Rossa impossible to put down." --USA Today

"[Marciano] amps up the glamour and mystery in her sophisticated novel about Italian sisters who clash over family, politics and men. Think La Dolce Vita turned topical tale." --Glamour

"Elegant, eloquent prose . . . Casa Rossa is notable for its rueful understanding of the volatile mix of emotions that binds us to those we love." --Los Angeles Times

"[A]ffecting, beautifully told. . . [R]ich and resonant. . .Marciano is a natural-born storyteller."--The New York Times

"Beautifully told . . . rich and resonant. . . . Marciano is a natural-born storyteller." --The New York Times Book Review

"A family epic [that] revolves around three generations of extraordinary women... Fans of Marciano's first novel will once again embrace her sensual descriptions of exotic lands." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Marciano brings Southern Italy as boldly to life as she did Kenya in Rules of the Wild. . . . imperturbably weav[ing] intricate complications together into a glamorous, romantic whole." --Publishers Weekly

"Lyrical. . . . Romantic. . . . The story of a family whose secrets collide with history." --Desert News

"Marciano. . .casts a sharp eye on the society that surrounds the family of the Casa Rossa. Her Italy is full of lies. . .But the search for truth takes courage, and the lesson learned in her novel is that the violence of the anni di piombo achieved nothing." --The Economist

"Lyrical. . . . spiced with those special Italian flavors: beauty, melodrama, and-of course-murder. . . . Thank heaven for life's little pleasures." --Daily Candy NYC

"Marciano effectively intermingles family secrets, Italian history, and the loves and lives of her characters. A good read." --Library Journal

"Tells the mesmerizing story of three generations of a twentieth century Italian family . . . with . . . passion and fervor. . . . Enthralling." --Italian Tribune

"We are made to reevaluate history and to look at the human cost both of ideals and failures in ideals. . .The period [Marciano] describes may have been given a stylish apotheosis by the early Fellini, but it can survive now only in elegies which, like this one, are really indictments." --Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Francesca Marciano is also the author of Rules of the Wild. She lives in Rome.