Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Overview

A sweeping tale of consequences spanning the 1930s to the 1990s, moving between fascist Italy and modern Ireland

In 1933, Bella Stuart leaves her quiet London life to move to Italy to tutor the child of a beautiful Jewish heiress and an elderly Italian aristocrat. Living at the family’s summer home, Bella's reserve softens as she comes to love her young charge, and find friendship with Maestro Edward, his enigmatic music teacher. But as the decade draws to an end and fascism tightens its grip on Europe, the fact that Alec is Jewish places his life in grave danger. Bella and Edward take the boy on a terrifying train journey out of Italy—one they have no reason to believe any of them will survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843549888
Publisher:	Atlantic Books
Publication date:	04/01/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Christine Dwyer Hickey is the author of Tatty, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year. She was also a prize-winner in the Observer/Penguin short story competition.

Editorial Reviews

"Mesmerizing . . . a haunting novel that will stay with you long after you've put it down."  —Library Journal, starred review

"Connections between the stories and characters are nimbly woven and had this reader rooting for an impossible outcome."  —Historical Novels Review

From the Publisher

Thank heavens this UK paperback is getting U.S. distribution! It's Irish author Hickey's (Tatty) fifth novel, a mesmerizing read that transports us to 1930s Italy, where protagonist Bella, a young woman originally from Ireland, is sent to be a governess at the direction of her widowed father, who wants a life without his spinster daughter. Most of the novel is told from the third-person present-tense perspective of Bella. Readers will feel the unhurried rhythms of local and expat life in coastal Bordighera and the growing divide between Italian and foreign sensibilities there, with Mussolini's rise lurking first at the story's edges and then advancing toward its core. Cutting away from this absorbing, meticulously observed narrative are briefer framing sections that take place in Dublin, past and present, told by two other characters. One of these is violent, but for the most part this is a subtle story that grows quietly in power. Hickey shows rather than tells, allowing readers to grasp meanings and import on their own as they follow Bella's relationships with her young charge, Alessandro, and with Edward, an elusive, live-in music teacher. VERDICT A haunting novel that will stay with you long after you've put it down—or urged it upon a friend. It will appeal to readers who have enjoyed the themes of Andrea Levy's or William Boyd's novels.—Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal

Library Journal