"Rich, imaginative. . . . One of the best novels I've read all year."—Ross King, author of Leonardo and the Last Supper

A sensuous, heartbreaking novel about art, beauty, and the choices we make that define us for life.

In 1968 a young man travels to Paris, where a series of unlikely events takes him to a tiny village in Italy—and to the one great love of his life. A marble merchant meets a couple on their honeymoon, introducing them to the sensual beauty of Carrara. An Italian woman arrives in Canada to find the father she never knew. A terrible accident in a marble quarry changes the course of a young boy's life and, ultimately, sets in motion each of these stories, which David Macfarlane masterfully shapes into a magnificent whole.

"A beautifully written, complex, and bittersweet story that spans continents and eras."—Daphne Kalotay, author of Russian Winter and Sight Reading