The novel follows Mrs. Emily Delahunty – though that is not her real name – living quietly in the Umbrian countryside. During a trip to Milan, she becomes the victim of a terrorist bombing on a train. In the hospital, she meets others affected by the attack: a reserved elderly Englishman, a troubled young American girl, and a German man, all of whom have lost loved ones. She invites them to recover at her home, where their shared trauma draws them together, but also reveals the limits of human connection, the persistence of loneliness, and the slow, uneven path toward healing. I particularly appreciated the setting, in a region of Italy I know and love, and was moved by the depth of emotion each character experiences.
“I had accepted gifts from men before, but never one like this, and never without strings that tied some grisly package. I was moved afresh by what was happening, by faith being kept in so many directions at once, by frailty turned into strength. The timbers of these useless buildings and the discoloured iron that had sunk into the ground would be scooped away, the fallen walls given an unexpected lease of life; an old man’s dream would spread on the hill beside the sunflower slope. He knew, as I did, that he would not live to see his garden’s heyday. But he knew it didn’t matter.”