An unbreakable, life-changing friendship will lead two young girls from different worlds to rebel against the sexism, prejudice, and injustice they face living in 1930s Italy in this moving novel that echoes the spirit of Elena Ferrante and Adriana Trigiani It is 1936, and in the small Italian city of Monza, on the pebbled bank of the Lambro, two frantic girls scramble to bury a body--the dead son of the city's most prominent fascist. If they are discovered, their lives and the fierce friendship they share will be in jeopardy. A year earlier, Francesca Strada, the respectable and well-behaved daughter of bourgeois parents, yearns for a life beyond provincial conformity. She is fascinated by Maddalena, the town's rebellious outcast whom neighbors call "the cursed one." Stubborn and proud, t...

An unbreakable, life-changing friendship will lead two young girls from different worlds to rebel against the sexism, prejudice, and injustice they face living in 1930s Italy in this moving novel that echoes the spirit of Elena Ferrante and Adriana Trigiani It is 1936, and in the small Italian city of Monza, on the pebbled bank of the Lambro, two frantic girls scramble to bury a body--the dead son of the city's most prominent fascist. If they are discovered, their lives and the fierce friendship they share will be in jeopardy. A year earlier, Francesca Strada, the respectable and well-behaved daughter of bourgeois parents, yearns for a life beyond provincial conformity. She is fascinated by Maddalena, the town's rebellious outcast whom neighbors call "the cursed one." Stubborn and proud, t...