Follow the Terranovas from 1944 right up to the present as they struggle to make their dreams come true in a country caught up in war time and time again. Can they overcome the terrible emotional toll that several different wars take on them and their loved ones?
Inspired in part by the author’s life growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, this is more than a story about war and what it can do to people on America’s home front. It’s also a story about the power of family and togetherness in the face of the destructive and divisive force of war and terrorism. It’s a story of hope for our times.
A close-knit Italian family struggles with war and terrorism over the course of four generations. Anna and Arturo Terranova settle in a working-class neighborhood in Hell's Kitchen, eager to start their new life together. Arturo runs a small yet profitable grocery store in the neighborhood, while Anna runs the household and tends to their kids, Camille, Michael, Christopher and Christina. When tragedy strikes the youngest Terranova, it becomes the first in a series of setbacks confronting the family. The premise that a single family could be enmeshed in so many wars initially strains credibility, but the author effectively traces the emotional turmoil wrought upon each successive generation. While Cardinale does touch upon the specifics of each war, the strength of the narrative lies in the well-drawn characters and their personal struggles with the sweeping cultural and historical changes surrounding them.
-Kirkus Discoveries
