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A CLOUD ON SAND: A Novel
A CLOUD ON SAND marks the arrival of an enthralling new writer—a novelist with the arresting voice of a born storyteller, and the most precise and subtle perception of the tangle of feelings with which we encounter one another. At the center of De Ferrari's novel: two women, mother and daughter, locked together by love and combat.
It is 1920. On the Italian Riviera, in an immense white villa high above a threadbare fishing village, lives the only woman who has ever married her way out of the village and into luxury. Dora has carnivorous charm and utter elegance. She is ignorant, imperious, volcanic, and frightening. Swathed in velvets and silks, swooping off to Paris or Monte Carlo on mysterious assignations, only to return to sit in her near-empty rooms by candlelight, she rules in lonely, widowed splendor over her fading kingdom.
The prime target of her tyranny is her daughter, Antonia. The young girl is sensitive, imaginative, and vulnerable. But—almost unknowingly—she has three allies: her beautiful and self-destructive brother, Marco, to whom she is profoundly connected; an admirer, Arturo (her first and only, met by chance), whose deepening passion for Antonia enrages her mother; and the elderly, formidably worldly Count Mora, whose loyalty to Dora's children as well as to Dora (once—still perhaps—his lover) transcends the barriers of time and place.
How Antonia first survives, and then conquers, the emotional wilderness her mother has created--how she ultimately escapes into love, into an extraordinary marriage, into a new world--is told in A CLOUD ON SAND. In scene after spellbinding scene, this powerfully involving novel moves from solitude to an emotional plenty, from its Mediterranean beginnings to a town in South America (which Antonia perceives as another planet), from a drama of slow suffocation--as Dora strives to win absolute domination over her world--to Antonia's adventurous progress into light, warmth and light.
Gabriella De Ferrari was born and raised in Peru before moving to the United States, where she has earned degrees from St Louis University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Harvard University. In Boston she became the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art, the Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and Assistant Director of the Fogg Art Museum, both at Harvard. Gabriella De Ferrari writes extensively on issues of contemporary art. She lives in New York City, and A CLOUD ON SAND, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1990, was her first novel.
It is 1920. On the Italian Riviera, in an immense white villa high above a threadbare fishing village, lives the only woman who has ever married her way out of the village and into luxury. Dora has carnivorous charm and utter elegance. She is ignorant, imperious, volcanic, and frightening. Swathed in velvets and silks, swooping off to Paris or Monte Carlo on mysterious assignations, only to return to sit in her near-empty rooms by candlelight, she rules in lonely, widowed splendor over her fading kingdom.
The prime target of her tyranny is her daughter, Antonia. The young girl is sensitive, imaginative, and vulnerable. But—almost unknowingly—she has three allies: her beautiful and self-destructive brother, Marco, to whom she is profoundly connected; an admirer, Arturo (her first and only, met by chance), whose deepening passion for Antonia enrages her mother; and the elderly, formidably worldly Count Mora, whose loyalty to Dora's children as well as to Dora (once—still perhaps—his lover) transcends the barriers of time and place.
How Antonia first survives, and then conquers, the emotional wilderness her mother has created--how she ultimately escapes into love, into an extraordinary marriage, into a new world--is told in A CLOUD ON SAND. In scene after spellbinding scene, this powerfully involving novel moves from solitude to an emotional plenty, from its Mediterranean beginnings to a town in South America (which Antonia perceives as another planet), from a drama of slow suffocation--as Dora strives to win absolute domination over her world--to Antonia's adventurous progress into light, warmth and light.
Gabriella De Ferrari was born and raised in Peru before moving to the United States, where she has earned degrees from St Louis University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Harvard University. In Boston she became the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art, the Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and Assistant Director of the Fogg Art Museum, both at Harvard. Gabriella De Ferrari writes extensively on issues of contemporary art. She lives in New York City, and A CLOUD ON SAND, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1990, was her first novel.
- GenresFiction
388 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 17, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 26, 2009
The publisher describes this book as "a tale of two women" and, inadequate as that is, I am puzzled as to how to appropriately describe this interesting and provocative book.
It is in many ways the coming of age story of a young Italian woman who escapes her unhappy family life by marrying and relocating to South America. But that description also is belittling for such a rich psychological drama.
It is a beautiful portrait of a lonely aristocratic man who establishes a symbiotic relationship with both mother and daughter;
It is a mystery about the mother's "secret life" and cruel behaviour towards her children;
and it is a lush historical novel that provides perspective on pre-WW2 life in Europe and South America.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the story raises more questions than it answers. The book ended without enlightment regarding the characters' motivations and/or secrets and I suspect that is just as the author intended it---satisfying but cloudy.
It is in many ways the coming of age story of a young Italian woman who escapes her unhappy family life by marrying and relocating to South America. But that description also is belittling for such a rich psychological drama.
It is a beautiful portrait of a lonely aristocratic man who establishes a symbiotic relationship with both mother and daughter;
It is a mystery about the mother's "secret life" and cruel behaviour towards her children;
and it is a lush historical novel that provides perspective on pre-WW2 life in Europe and South America.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the story raises more questions than it answers. The book ended without enlightment regarding the characters' motivations and/or secrets and I suspect that is just as the author intended it---satisfying but cloudy.
January 19, 2014
About a woman growing up in Italy between the World Wars, and her efforts to make a life for herself after being raised by an extremely detached and neglectful mother.
I guess the central message of the book was that love comes in so many different forms, and that something that doesn't "look" like love should look doesn't make it any less of real love. But I thought the "message," if that's what it was, was very subtle; not strong enough to make for a very interesting or compelling story. I had to guess too much at what the message really was, for it to make an impact on me.
I guess the central message of the book was that love comes in so many different forms, and that something that doesn't "look" like love should look doesn't make it any less of real love. But I thought the "message," if that's what it was, was very subtle; not strong enough to make for a very interesting or compelling story. I had to guess too much at what the message really was, for it to make an impact on me.
November 2, 2011
A fascinating tale about mother and daughter
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews