The Letter Carrier - Large Print by Francesca Giannone (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

What would happen if you finally met your soul mate--but they were married to someone else?

In a novel that has become a bestselling phenomenon in Italy, The Letter Carriershows how a little town in southern Italy might be just like every town--with women and men, husband and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, all trying to navigate the world while staying true to their hearts.

Salento, Italy, June 1934: A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows each other. A couple gets off: The man, Carlo, a child of the South, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna--his wife--is a stranger from the North. Carlo's brother is there to meet them, and he and everyone else can't help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue.

But Anna is not like the other wives. She doesn't gossip or attend church. She reads books no one else has ever heard of, exploring ideas that some find threatening. She even wears pants, just like a man, and thinks a woman should have rights, just like a man.

There aren't many options for a woman with Anna's sensibilities, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. A female letter carrier? It is unthinkable! But Anna passes the postal exam and soon becomes the invisible thread connecting the town as she delivers letters between clandestine lovers, families waiting to hear news of loves ones away at war, and even helping those who can't read.

Letters connect people, and they convey information and emotion. But for some in Lizzanello, letters are too little and too late.

The Letter Carrier taps into the universal feeling of connection--and what happens when that connection perhaps comes at the wrong time.

Review Quotes

"Francesca Giannone is a magnificent storyteller, a master of chiaroscuro, the light and dark, delivering the delicious joys of life along with all that falls into shadow. This novel is rich and personal. When a bus stops in Lizzanello by the sea, Carlo, who has scores to settle, introduces family and friends to Anna, his modern and efficient wife and their young son. Their lives and those of the people of the village will never be the same. There is ambition, forbidden love and great longing. There is history as the story unspools against a changing Italy, but no village, no country, no universe will evolve as much as Anna, who insists on living a life in full, on her own terms, without settling for less."--Adriana Trigiani, author of The View from Lake Como

"Francesca Giannone brings the sun-soaked vineyards of southern Italy to life in this transportive and poignant novel. The Letter Carrier, set in the difficult decades before and after WWII, is a lush diorama of a village in flux. At the beating heart of it all is Anna, the rule-breaking, bighearted letter carrier, a woman ahead of her time and drawn movingly from the author's own great-grandmother's story. An arresting read by an important rising author."--Juliet Grames, [internationally bestselling] author of [The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and] The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia

International Praise for The Letter Carrier

"A great historical and coming-of-age novel, interwoven with maturity and wisdom, that speaks to each of us in a way that allows a fragment of life to contain and give back an entire universe."--Corriere della Sera

"The Letter Carrier conceals a strong soul, that of marginal, saved stories."--Nadia Terranova, author of Farewell, Ghosts and Zia Nina

"With an intense and engaging style, [Francesca Giannone] describes the psychology of the characters . . . and the novel becomes a small historical fresco."--La Lettura

About the Author

Francesca Giannone has a degree in communication science and studied in Rome at the CSC, the oldest European film school. She has published various short stories in literary magazines, both in print and online. Giannone currently lives in Milan, but her heart is still in her native Lizzanello, a seaside town in the Salento region. She hopes to live there again one day.