The book
Luna loves the sea and the gifts she finds every day on the shore. But one day a wave sends her life adrift, in this touching, funny novel about grief, love, and friendship
Thirteen-year-old Luna lives in a small town on the coast of Tuscany. She is smart and funny. And she is albino. When her brother Luca drowns in a surfing accident, Luna’s mother retreats into herself. At school, stricken by her loss yet determined to carry on, Luna makes a new friend and ally, the eccentric Zot, a boy from Chernobyl. Luna believes that Luca still speaks to her through a whale bone washed up on the shore. In truth, this is part of a ruse that has been orchestrated by Sandro, Luca’s former teacher, as a misguided way to assuage the guilt he carries with him.
Luna’s fantasies clash with the lies—even the well-intentioned ones—of the adult world in this touching, droll novel by the author of Live Bait (Other Press, 2014). Luna is an unforgettable character—vivid, stubborn, highly imaginative, determined to become her own person—who will appeal to readers of all ages.
Praise
“Open the book at any page...and find traces of impeccable humour and of daring magic, of innocence and of sensuality, as if the entire book had been animated by a single, unique breath of life.”—Corriere della Sera
“A timeless tale of the power of imagination and of the strength possessed solely by those still capable of astonishment, of the extraordinary experience of being unconventional, even when suffering may sometimes be the consequence.”—La Stampa
The author
Fabio Genovesi
Fabio Genovesi was born in Forte dei Marmi in Versilia in 1974. He is the author of Live Bait (Other Press, 2014), which has been translated into over ten languages, an earlier novel, Versilia Rock City, the memoir Morte Dei Marmi (Laterza, 2012), and the Strega Prize-winning novel, The Breaking of a Wave.