'A beautiful, stark, poignant account of fear, love and loss' Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths

'A novel that you long to savour because there won't be another one this rich, this compelling, this extraordinarily satisfying for a long, long time' Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This and a Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award finalist 2017

'Readers will devour this novel in one sitting as I did, then chew over it long after the book is done' Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King's Daughter

1978.

Ponte, a small community in Northern Italy: peaceful woods, discarded rubbish, a closed-down factory. An unbearably hot summer like many others, wilted flowers and trips to the waterfalls.

Elia Furenti is sixteen, living in a secluded house with his parents, a life so unremarkable that even its moderate unhappiness has been accepted as normal.

That is until the day the beautiful, damaged Anna returns to Ponte and firmly propels Elia to the edge of adulthood.

But then everything starts to unravel.

Elia's father, Ettore, is let go from his job and loses himself in the darkest corners of his mind.

A young boy is murdered, shaking the small community to its core.

And a girl climbs into a van and vanishes in the deep, dark woods...

Translated from Italian by Alex Valente.