Beginning Middle End

What our staff have to say:

"This is one of the most lovely, astounding books I’ve read! A mother takes her daughter on a journey across Sicily, in search of new beginnings, in the midst of life, and after the end of a marriage. Volcanoes, swordfish, mosaic tiles, and Classic philosophers people these pages. This book feels like magic: thoughtful, searching, curious, and completely surprising."

— Nirica

All I had to do, or so I thought, was to answer a simple question: How do I reinvent it, the story, our lives?

A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again,the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins – not just through their family history, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past.

With her daughter leaving childhood behind and her mother beginning to show signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself at a crossroads. She must now ask herself: How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family's memories made and what happens when they disappear?

A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a radical portrait of starting over, in all its forms, Beginning Middle End offers an exhilarating testament to the power of the stories and the loves we hold most dear.