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A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism (The Resistance Quartet, 4) Hardcover – January 28, 2020
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"Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope." —Wall Street Journal
The acclaimed author of A Train in Winter returns with the "moving finale" (The Economist) of her Resistance Quartet—the powerful and inspiring true story of the women of the partisan resistance who fought against Italy’s fascist regime during World War II.
In the late summer of 1943, when Italy broke with the Germans and joined the Allies after suffering catastrophic military losses, an Italian Resistance was born. Four young Piedmontese women—Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca—living secretly in the mountains surrounding Turin, risked their lives to overthrow Italy’s authoritarian government. They were among the thousands of Italians who joined the Partisan effort to help the Allies liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made this partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women—like this brave quartet—who swelled its ranks.
The bloody civil war that ensued pitted neighbor against neighbor, and revealed the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together into a coherent fighting force. But the death rattle of Mussolini’s two decades of Fascist rule—with its corruption, greed, and anti-Semitism—was unrelentingly violent and brutal.
Drawing on a rich cache of previously untranslated sources, prize-winning historian Caroline Moorehead illuminates the experiences of Ada, Frida, Silvia, and Bianca to tell the little-known story of the women of the Italian partisan movement fighting for freedom against fascism in all its forms, while Europe collapsed in smoldering ruins around them.
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateJanuary 28, 2020
- Dimensions6 x 1.29 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062686356
- ISBN-13978-0062686350
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Editorial Reviews
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“Important, meticulously researched… A House in the Mountains tells the untold story of the women of the Italian resistance…. Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope, Ms. Moorehead’s book charts the experiences of these women in the wider context of the war in Italy.” — Wall Street Journal
“The moving finale of a quartet of books on resistance to fascism. . . . Ms. Moorehead conveys the terror with understated power; she is equally good at conjuring the blurred morality of civil conflict.” — The Economist
“Riveting…. The narrative is told with such verve that I frequently had goosebumps.” — The Guardian
“Gripping and important…. Moorehead delicately unravels and interweaves the personal stories of several key women in the Italian resistance… giving us a compelling narrative that vividly describes who these women were and what they did for their country…. A House in the Mountains is something of a manifesto against neutrality, and a showcase of the boundless power of female passion. The women of the resistance still have so much to teach us today.” — AirMail
“Gripping… exhaustively researched… Moorehead artfully builds the tension as liberation approaches and partisans make a desperate last stand.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A highly satisfying conclusion to the author’s series. Excellent, well-presented evidence of the incalculable strengths and abilities of women to create and run a country.” — Kirkus, starred review
“In this deeply moving, beautifully told history, biographer and historian Moorehead shares the story of northern Italian resistance during WWII, focusing on the anti-Fascists of Turin… [A] superb and significant chronicle.” — Booklist, starred review
“Moorehead, in the final book of her “Resistance Quartet” series, tells the incredible story of the stafetta, women of the Italian resistance…. A fine history.” — Library Journal, starred review
“Italy often gets short shrift in popular English-language histories about World War II, with the fighting in the country shrugged off as a sideshow to the Battle of Britain and the invasion of France. Caroline Moorehead takes advantage of this relative gap in the literature with the moving A House in the Mountains.” — The Oregonian
“Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance…. [An] excellent book.” — The Sunday Times
About the Author
Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of the Resistance Quartet, which includes A Bold and Dangerous Family, Village of Secrets, and A Train in Winter, as well as Human Cargo, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. An acclaimed biographer, she has written for the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The Independent. She lives in London and Italy.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper; First Edition (January 28, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062686356
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062686350
- Item Weight : 1.22 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.29 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #961,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #884 in Italian History (Books)
- #2,688 in Women in History
- #7,185 in Historical Study (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of Village of Secrets and A Train in Winter, as well as Human Cargo: A Journey Among the Refugees, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An acclaimed biographer of Martha Gellhorn, Bertrand Russell, and Lucie de la Tour du Pin, among others, Moorehead has also written for the Telegraph, the Times, and the Independent. She lives in London and Italy.
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This is a rich, dense book filled with historical detail. I learned that Italy basically had to fight for its own survival with little outside help. The entire country and its inhabitants were held in deep suspicion by the UK and the US because of Mussolini's twenty-year reign. Besides, they believed the country was about to turn Communist anyway, and neither wanted to help Communists. Then Mussolini was overthrown, and now the Italian people had a new enemy: Germany. A sentence that made my blood run cold: "Italy, which had been a useless ally, was now occupied by men [Nazis] who had learned in Eastern Europe how to treat useless people."
Italy was now being brutally stripped of everything the Third Reich needed to fuel the war effort, and anyone who tried to stand in the way was murdered. The first to stand up and fight back were the women of Italy, who had been totally disenfranchised during Mussolini's reign. They stood up in their thousands and joined the Resistance, risking everything for their freedom.
A House in the Mountains is fascinating and inspiring, showing how the Resistance in Italy began and how it gathered strength, and I appreciate having a much better understanding of Italy and its people now.
Top reviews from other countries
A great aunt of mine had told me how an uncle of mine was saved by an elderly woman who grabbed him outside her stoop and pulled him in her home out of hundreds of troops marching by her home. She exclaimed, “Figlio Mio” (my son) took him in, dressed him in civilian clothes and protected him until the war was over so that he could be sent back home safely.
Thank you for the research and for this wonderfully written book!








