The Red House: A Novel

ISBN: 0385544987

Author: Morris, Mary

Condition: New

Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this lyrical novel of family, loss and, ultimately, love.Thirty years ago, Lauras mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, I will not be here forever. The family never understood what Viola meant.Decades later, at a crossroads in her marriage and her life, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II. Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage.In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mothers lost years. She is certain that the paintings of the red house hold the answer to her mothers past and her search takes her from her hometown of Brindisi, deep into Puglia where she encounters a man who knew her mother and who illuminates little-known secrets of Italys Second World War.Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mothers trajectory as she ventures north to Naples, Turin and finally home. Along the way, she confronts the dark truth of her mother's story and at last makes sense of her own.