The Brittle Age - by Donatella Di Pietrantonio (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE 2024 STREGA PRIZE AND THE 2024 YOUTH STREGA PRIZE

★ "A gut-wrenching excavation of generational trauma... this contemplative novel offers a subtle but piercing meditation on the complex dynamics between parents and children."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Acclaimed Italian author Donatella Di Pietrantonio's best-selling novel to date, The Brittle Age is a powerful mother and daughter story and a profound exploration of human fragility and the haunting shadows of the past

In the 1990s, deep in the Maiella mountains of Central Italy, a brutal crime shatters the peace of the local community. Two young women are murdered, a third left for dead. Lucia is twenty years old back, and the only survivor is her best friend.   

Now, Lucia is a physiotherapist, separating from her husband, her daughter Amanda studying in Milan.  When the pandemic forces Amanda to return to the family's home near Pescara, Lucia's memories are reawakened, and with them the impact of past trauma. 

Set against the backdrop of the rugged Apennine mountains, this gripping psychological family drama weaves Lucia and Amanda's personal struggles with the mystery of the tragedy that marked their familial land decades earlier.  

Inspired by true events, The Brittle Age is a tale of individual resilience, and a commentary on the indelible impact of historical events on personal lives and the broader community.   

Review Quotes

Praise for The Brittle Age

★ "Di Pietrantonio offers a gut-wrenching excavation of generational trauma rooted in a 1992 double homicide in the Apennine mountains of central Italy... In crystalline prose, this contemplative novel offers a subtle but piercing meditation on the complex dynamics between parents and children."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The chronicle of the crimes and their punishment is set forth with the grim authority of a true-crime classic."--Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

"There is much bleakness here, but also hope. The author dedicates her novel to 'all the women who survive'; and in pairing the stories of mother and daughter struggling to overcome men's violent acts, she urges a solidarity between women, rather than a splintering... and posits that for women to overgrow them too, past horrors must be examined. Silence is the greatest danger of all."--Emily Rhodes, The Spectator

"Dark and disturbing but fascinating, it is a story told deftly and with considerable feeling. The author, Winner of the 2024 Strega Prize and the 2024 Youth Strega Prize has produced a compelling tale with a relentless drive that will surely keep any reader of mysteries and psychological thrillers riveted to the page."--Eric Boss, Reading the West

"Donatella Di Pietrantonio tackles this story using resources that are increasingly rare--and therefore urgent--in the contemporary story: modesty, delicacy, respect for the characters' feelings, ability to listen."--La Stampa

"Intense and precise."--Il Foglio

"We enter the woods in search of the murderer...but it's the forest--the beech forest of the Dente del Lupo--that is the other principal character of this novel, both a generational saga and a dark fairy tale."--la Repubblica

"A novel with the narrative tension of a thriller that moves between rural Abruzzo and a city, Milan, whose promise of freedom remains a mirage."--Il Mattino

Praise for A Sister's Story

"Another simmering, intense novel of dysfunctional relationships and destructive secrets... Di Pietrantonio radiantly conjures small, piercing moments that linger between characters... Her sharp examinations haunt and illuminate, transforming the quotidian into the indelibly literary."--Shelf Awareness

"The talented team of prize-winning author Di Pietrantonio and translator Goldstein once again bring an immersion experience of Italian family and culture, a strong sense of place, and the intricacies and mysteries of intimate relationships in understated, vivid prose."--Booklist

"The sisters from the author's previous novel, A Girl Returned--a stoic narrator and her fiery younger sister, Adriana--reappear in this unsettling companion tale."--The New Yorker

"If you've devoured everything by Elena Ferrante, there's a good chance you'll like the work of Di Pietrantonio."--Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2022

"Intimate and sharp."--Il Foglio

"A true jewel."--Huffington Post (Italy)

"Sharp and incandescent... A Sister's Story unsettles and uplifts."--Critica Letteraria

"A Sister's Story carries the same message of the greatest Italian literature of the 20th century, from Elsa Morante to Primo Levi, a message at once tragic and hopeful--that, while suffering may be an inevitable part of life, we can choose not to let it define us."--la Repubblica

Praise for A Girl Returned

"Di Pietrantonio [has a] lively way with a phrase (the translator, Ann Goldstein, shows the same sensitivity she does with Elena Ferrante) [and] a fine instinct for detail."--The Washington Post

"An achingly beautiful book, and an utterly devastating one."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

★ "A gripping, deeply moving coming-of-age novel; immensely readable, beautifully written, and highly recommended."--Kirkus Review (Starred Review)

"Spellbinding."--Publishers Weekly

"A captivating tale about the trials of settling down, fitting in and battling on amid emotional upheaval."--The Economist

"Donatella Di Pietrantonio employs sensitive and powerful prose to tell the conflicting coming-of-age story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood, and of self-discovery."--World Literature Today

"With unflinching perception, in A Girl Returned Di Pietrantonio presents a heartrending tale of a child discarded, never quite reclaimed."--Shelf Awareness

"Set against the rugged landscape of Abruzzo, Italy, A Girl Returned explores the arbitrariness of origin and family relationships, and questions whether we really belong anywhere."--New Statesman