An Italian Wife
“I loved Ann Hood’s An Italian Wife in the same way I loved Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge—and for the same reason. The interconnected stories that fan out from a central character—in this case, matriarch Josephine Rimaldi—illuminate important truths about the ways in which our families, our ancestry, and the era into which we’re born shape who we become. An Italian Wife is a multigenerational masterpiece.”
Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Water
From the bestselling author of The Obituary Writer comes the stirring multigenerational story of an Italian family.
An Italian Wife opens in turn-of-the-century Italy, when young Josephine Rimaldi is forced to follow her new husband to America in an arranged marriage and finds herself in a strange country with a man she doesn't know or love.
Bound by tradition, she gives birth to seven children; the last, conceived in a passionate affair, Josephine must give up for adoption. Josephine spends the rest of her life searching for this child, keeping her secret even as her other children, whose stories unfold in surprising ways, go off to war, get married, and make their own mistakes: Her son suffers in World War I. Her daughter struggles to assimilate in the new world of the 1950s American suburbs. And her granddaughters experiment with the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of the 1970s.
Poignant, sensual, and deeply felt, An Italian Wife is a sweeping and evocative portrait of a family bound by love and heartbreak.
Praise