A Tuscan Childhood (English)

Beevor's delightful memoir chronicles the days she and her eccentric parents spent in a huge, dilapidated castle in Tuscany after the First World War. Forced to leave when fascism took over Italy, the family changed in sad, irrevocable ways: her brother was killed in the war, her artist-father died, her neglectful journalist-mother became old and lame. When Beevor returned as an old woman, she found tragic changes, but she also rediscovered the spirit and resilience of the Italian peasantry. Her unpretentious memoir is both a portrait of a certain kind of early 20th-century British expatriate, and a loving tribute to the people of Tuscany, rich and poor, whom she came to know well during her time there. minimize