Sono cose che passano

After World War II, the baron of dubious nobility Rodolfo Polizzi married Ottavia princess of Bauci and took her with him to Leonforte, an inland town in Sicily. In that summer of 1951 where, not far away, on the island of Vulcano Roberto Rossellini fell in love with Ingrid Bergman and, in Capo d’Orlando, Lucio Piccolo with his brothers Casimiro and Agata Giovanna – Ottavia’s uncles – received the international jet set, at the candid Rodolfo’s home came Lucy Thompson, his wife’s college companion to awaken the princess’s youthful past, all of strange rituals and student sabbaths. Under the eyes of Miss Lia, an enthusiastic witness to an electrifying season, as Baron Polizzi falls ill and the princess allows herself to be seduced by a master builder, the whole of Leonforte turns into pandemonium. But a few years later Carlo Delcroix, a hero soldier–blind and maimed–pushes her to a crucial but perhaps vain choice.
A novel as seductive and fiery as Sicily, an Italian-style divorce that Pietrangelo Buttafuoco transforms into a modern female Faust.