Hot Chocolate at Hanselmann's

A work of understated elegance and cumulative power, this novel eases readers into a drama unfolding within a Catholic family in Italy on the eve of World War II. As scenes only dimly understood by the child Lorenza are revisited by the woman she becomes, what seemed a family affair-a romance involving Lorenza's mother, her father's Jewish friend Arturo, and her aunt Margot in Switzerland-begins to reveal the broader outlines of the drama of history, in particular the tragedy of Italy's Jew...