Casa Rossa: A Novel

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.

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