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The New Vine
Guernica Editions, Spring 2017
322 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781771831475
ISBN10: 1771831472
English
$8.95 Canada, $8.95 US
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In post WWII Italy, Passero, the son of a winemaker killed by the Nazis, commits an impetuous act. He kidnaps a young orphaned girl and offers her up in exchange for his own freedom. His actions create a lifelong connection with her culminating in an adulterous affair in Toronto in the 1960s, while he is building a life with another woman. The union produces an illegitimate son named Ethan, who, in time, becomes an artist and inherits the vineyard once belonging to Passero's family. The vineyard, as the artist discovers, is a place where truth extends from fiction, a place for new roots and shoots, a place where God and art interweave and become interchangeable.
What do you think you are, Vincenzo? A sparrow? Is that what you think you are … a passero?
The charred land appeared far into the hilltops and advancing to the olive groves. There, too, were heaps of seared timber and the stink of carbon. The smell got worse the closer he came. At that point, at the vineyard, the road was a stew of December mud, tree trunks, and uprooted plants. There was nothing to differentiate this from the other vestiges of the village. The shed’s remaining pole pitched like the Leaning Tower of Pisa over what still remained of the house. For a moment it didn’t register that this was his home. Once again, he shut tight and then opened his eyes in a desperate attempt to wake from a dream.
Author
Books by Robert Marrone
