In a Glass House

After a harrowing voyage from Italy, during which his mother died, seven-year-old Vittorio arrives in Canada with his newborn half-sister, and is reunited with his estranged father, a dark, isolated, and angry figure he hardly knows. The story that follows spans two decades of Vittorios life within an immigrant Italian farming community in Southwestern Ontario, through his university years, and then into Africa where he goes to teach. At the centre of Vittorios existence is his strained relationship with his father and with his half-sister, Rita.In a Glass Houseis a haunting tale about perseverance and longed-for redemption. Ricci juxtaposes the intimate, complex world of family, with its shadowy intricate web of alliances, against the dislocations of the immigrantexperience. The result is a richly textured and memorable novel.