Inheritance A Novel [Paperback]

This exquisitely written novel asks a simple question: how well do we know our parents? One half of the story begins after the death of Luigi Bonocchio, an Italian immigrant whose daughter Olivia discovers a mysterious deed among his possessions. The deed is to a house in Urbino, Italy---the hometown he barely spoke of. Intrigued, Olivia travels there. At first she is charmed by the historic city, the relatives she's not met before, and the young lawyer she's hired to help her investigate the claim. But when Olivia tries to sort out the deed, she is met with a puzzling silence. Everyone in the town remembers her father, but they are not eager to tell his story. However, Luigi tells his part of the tale directly to the reader as the chapters alternate between Olivia's search for the truth and Luigi's account of his history. By the end of this skillfully constructed book, the reader understands both sides of a heartbreaking, yet ultimately satisfying love story.

Natalie Danford is coeditor of the annual Best New American Voices series and a freelance writer and book critic. She lives with her husband in New York City.

A slim book with outsize ambitions, an engaging subtle look at the complicated history of a family and a country . . . impressive . . . Her compact prose is studded with rich and telling detail . . . compelling. Los Angeles Times

Written with a passionate clarity and with surprising wisdom,Inheritanceis possessed of a genuine fictional beauty. Chuck Wachtel, author of Joe the Engineer

Although it's barely 200 pages long this first novel has enough plot for several books. Danford juggles this with aplomb. She is an old-fashioned storyteller. The New York Times Book Review

Danford displays remarkable stylistic prose. The Boston Globe

In Natalie Danford'sInheritance,Olivia Bonocchio goes where each of us knows we should never go: past a father's persona and into thl³°