From Publishers Weekly
Family dynamics collide with watershed moments of the 20th century in this debut novel that follows the Levi family from pre-WWI through the rise of fascism in Italy. Hopping perspectives among the aristocratic Levis-beautiful and selfish Gemma, her weak, adoring husband Sandro and their three children, Marcello, Dolly and Titti-Bonucci chronicles the Levis' Zelig-like tour through the era, from the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the Dreyfus Affair and the advent of Zionism, the Irredentist struggle, and the growing influence of Il Duce. Clearly, Bonucci, a translator and organizer of the anti-Berlusconi movement, is after large quarry-her writing is big on drama and thin on literary embellishment. Yet more than political turmoil, the Levi family is embattled by personal woes: gambling, drug addiction, adultery and a tangle of Oedipal attachments. The "true" story, readers learn, lies in the gaps between these narratives, at the limits of characters' self-awareness. (Even a trip to the fashionable Dr. Freud hardly penetrates Marcello's damaged psyche.) In its original Italian publication, this book won the Zerilli-Marimò prize, and its arrival in the U.S. is sure to interest readers of both historical fiction and international literature.
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Review
"Fin de siécle Europe is often rendered beautiful in its decay and death rattle — what followed was pure evil and destruction. Fiction written in this period is some of the best, sweetest and most tragic we have. Silvia Bonucci's "Voices From a Time" belongs among these works . . . The novel is written from each family member's perspective, which, when combined with the gravitational pull of the coming war years, creates an alarming feeling, like being trapped on a merry-go-round where each rider contributes to the frenzy of speed and none can get off."
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Los Angeles Times Book Review"Family dynamics collide with watershed moments of the 20th century in this debut novel that follows the Levi family from pre-WWI through the rise of fascism in Italy. . . . In its original Italian publication, this book won the Zerilli-Marim˜ prize, and its arrival in the U.S. is sure to interest readers of both historical fiction and international literature."
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Publishers Weekly"This debut novel is a portrait of a wealthy Jewish family living in Trieste in the turbulent period between 1900 and the rise of the fascist movement in the '20's. . . . Bonucci does an excellent job of recreating a hectic period of decadence and ruin, in which a family, despite meaning everything to one another, are mutually self-destructive. She is equally adept at pinpointing the ways family members manipulate one another."
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Kirkus Reviews"A tangle of love and betrayal, suicide and incomprehension, dreams and disappointments intelligently knitted together by Silvia Bonucci. . . . A debut novel that would have made Emile Zola, the father of French Realism, fall out of his chair."
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Il Piccolo"Life in Trieste from the beginning of the 20th century through the days of fascism and World War II comes alive..."Voices" cannot but fascinate the reader with Miss Bonucci's charming account of how this rich Jewish family sees itself and reacts to a changing world."
— Washington Times “Bonucci makes her debut with a very intimate and exceptional novel.”
– La Repubblica
