There Your Heart Lies A Novel [Paperback]

US

At nineteen, Marian Taylor cut herself off from her wealthy, conservative Irish Catholic family and left America to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War—an experience she has always kept to herself. Now in her nineties and diagnosed with cancer, Marian finally shares what happened to her during those years with her granddaughter Amelia, a young woman of good heart but only a vague notion of life’s purpose. Marian’s secret history—of personal and ethical challenges nearly unthinkable to Amelia’s generation, of the unexpected gifts of true love and true friendship—compels Amelia to make her own journey to Spain to reconcile her grandmother’s past with her own uncertain future. Moving and deeply felt,There Your Heart Liesexplores how character is forged in a particular moment in history—and passed down through generations.

Mary Gordon is the author of eight novels, includingFinal Payments,Pearl, andThe Love of My Youth; six works of nonfiction, including the memoirsThe Shadow ManandCircling My Mother; and three collections of short fiction, includingThe Stories of Mary Gordon, which was awarded the Story Prize. She has received many other honors, including a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.

PREFACE
 
In July of 1936, the Fascist army, led by General Francisco Franco, launched a coup against the democratically elected Republic of Spain. The great powers of the West—the United States, England, France, Germany, and Italy, signed a neutrality agreement, promis­ing not to arm either side. Germany and Italy violated the agreement, providing arms and other aid to Franco’s armies; the United States, England, and France remained neutral. lW