On the isolated Italian island of Procida, adolescent Arturo passes his days with his dog. His mother long deceased, his father often absent, Arturo roams the countryside or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering boyhood existence is existentially upended, however, when his father brings home a beautiful 16-year-old bride, Nunziatella, and the household will never be the same again. Among the leading writers of Italy's postwar generation, Elsa Morante (1912-85) won the prestigious Strega Prize for this 1957 novel, and it is rendered into graceful English here by Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels.