The Garden of Letters

September 1, 2014
Loss and hope pervade Richman's (The Lost Wife, 2011) graceful narrative, which is set in Italy during WWII. In 1943, Elodie Bertolotti, four months pregnant, arrives in Portofino by boat and is taken in by a kindhearted doctor. Exhausted and frightened, she is profoundly grateful for the sanctuary she finds in his cliffside house, where she must come to terms with the tragedies she has suffered during the war. Once the much-loved daughter of a music teacher, and herself a gifted cellist, she was drawn into helping the local Resistance movement after her father was beaten by the Blackshirts for playing music too loud. Learning how to weave coded messages into her performance pieces, Elodie proved to be a valuable aid in passing vital information to Resistance members. But when a mission puts her in grave danger, she flees to Portofino and the house of the young doctor, whose life is also haunted by tragedy. Sensual in its descriptions of the Italian countryside and the allure of music, this moving story also graphically depicts the heroism and sacrifice of wartime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)