Innocence

Innocence"A delectable comedy of manners." Boston Globe The Ridolfi are a Florentine family of long lineage and little money. It is 1955, Italy is still struggling back after the war, and the family, like its decrepit villa and farm, has seen better days. Among the Ridolfi, only eighteen year old Chiara shows anything like vitality. But it's a vitality matched by innocence a dangerous combination, to herself and to all who love her. Chiara sets her heart on

"A delectable comedy of manners." --Boston Globe

The Ridolfi are a Florentine family of long lineage and little money. It is 1955, Italy is still struggling back after the war, and the family, like its decrepit villa and farm, has seen better days. Among the Ridolfi, only eighteen-year-old Chiara shows anything like vitality. But it's a vitality matched by innocence--a dangerous combination, to herself and to all who love her.

Chiara sets her heart on the bull-headed Salvatore, a brilliant young doctor from the south who resolved long ago to be emotionally dependent on no one. Stymied, she calls on her resourceful English girlfriend, Barney, to help her make the impossible match. And so ensues a comedy of errors, in which guileless lovers, with the best of intentions, considerable charm, and the kindest of instincts, succeed in making one another thoroughly and astonishingly miserable.

"An exquisite mosaic, where every tiny piece is part of a world." --A. S. Byatt, Threepenny Review


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 10/14/2014
ISBN: 9780544359468
Pages: 368
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 1.00d

Review Citations: New York Review of Books 12/04/2014 pg. 8