A Winter's Night

Set during the first half of the twentieth century, this is the story of the Brunis, a family of farmers from the Italian Padan Plain who have worked the land since time immemorial. And it is a story about the homeless multitudes, travelers, and tinkers, roaming Europe during the hardscrabble nineteen-twenties and thirties. In this expansive novel, reminiscent of Bertolucci's masterpiece 1900 in its scope and subject matter, these two worlds meet when the Brunis open their great barn and offer it as a refuge for those in need of a warm, dry, and safe place to sleep and eat.

The barn becomes font and inspiration for a series of vivid stories involving sundry strangers, the Bruni parents themselves, and their nine children—seven boys and two girls—who will grow into young men and women during World War I and its aftermath. Told in the tradition of country folktales and framed by the devastating years of strife—two world wars and the years of...