Close to real life, this story follows the lives of a Jewish family in romantic Naples, as the consequences of an unfolding WWII pummel every character, emotionally, physically. From the book’s open, two women plummeting to their end, to the book’s close, where author Webster acknowledges and thanks his lineage, the real Mamarella, and his first and foremost Ginger, as well as many friends — this novel details, justifies, and almost alerts the reader to events, which have already happened, but feel fresh as if real today: as it were infused with the urgency to write about it now. A message on the past. A shroud of confusion that makes you ask why Mussolini, why? For justice you did what you did? To protect yourself from the aggressive neighbor? To placate an already isolationist nation that never wanted to enter war, or really expand their borders? Peace?
Not why, the narrator explains; why is the wrong question to ask while in the drama — thus entering you into the drama — but what; ask what. What is the better question. What is happening. What does it mean. What to do about it.
This book is for anyone who, in an effort to forgive but never forget, is captivated by the hardships of Europe’s past and moved to understand it better. Consider previewing it’s pages. You will not regret it.
